IHD 5325 

1163 
1913 
|C73 
Copy 1 




Class ff/JSC 
Rnnk ffj Ce> 

Q7?> 



^SdsS 89 } HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES { ^."leTo" 



REPORT 



ON THE 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION 



MADE UNDER 



HOUSE RESOLUTION 387 



3 7 

f?7 



SIXTY-THIRD CONGRESS 

THIRD SESSION ^Q 



A 




March 2, 1915. — Ordered to be printed 



WASHINGTON 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 

1915 



vtf 






£ 



^ 



MAK 13 1915 



I 



REPORT 



Under authority of House resolution 387, the Committee on 
Mines and Mining was directed to make an investigation, either as 
a committee or by subcommittee, of the strike in the coal mines of 
Colorado and the strike in the copper mines^pf Michigan. The fol- 
lowing is a copy of the resolution : 

Resolution 387. 

In the House of Representatives, United States, 

January 27, 191If. 

Resolved, That the House Committee on Mines and Mining is hereby author- 
ized and directed to make a thorough and complete investigation of the con- 
ditions existing in the coal fields in the counties of Las Animas, Huerfano, 
Fremont, Grand, Routt, Boulder, Weld, and other counties in the State of 
Colorado; and in and about the copper mines in the counties of Hougbton, 
Keweenaw, and Ontonagon, in the State of Michigan, for the purpose of as- 
certaining — 

First. Whether or not any system of peonage has been or is being maintained 
in said coal or copper fields. 

Second. Whether or not postal services and facilities have been or are being 
interferred with or obstructed in said coal or copper fields; and if so, by whom. 

Third. Whether or not the immigration laws of this country have been or 
are being violated in said coal or copper fields; and if so, by whom. 

Fourth. Investigate and report all facts and circumstances relating to the 
charge that citizens of the United States have been arrested, tried, or convicted 
contrary to or in violation of the Constitution or the laws of the United States. 

Fifth. Investigate and report whether the conditions existing in said coal 
fields in Colorado and in said copper fields in Michigan have been caused by 
agreements and combinations entered into contrary to the laws of the United 
States for the purpose of controlling the production, sale, and transportation 
of the coal and copper of these fields. 

Sixth. Investigate and report whether or not firearms, ammunition, and ex- 
plosives have been shipped into the said coal and copper fields, with the purpose 
to exclude the products of the said fields from competitive markets in inter- 
state trade; and if so, by whom and by whom paid for. 

Seventh. If any or all of these conditions exist, the causes leading up to 
said conditions. 

Said committee or any subcommittee thereof is hereby empowered to sit and 
act during the session or recess of Congress, or either House thereof, at such 
time and place as it may deem necessary ; to require by subpoena or otherwise 
the attendance of witnesses, and the production of papers, books, and documents ; 
to employ stenographers and such other clerical assistance as may be necessary. 
The chairman of the committee or any member thereof may administer oaths 
to witnesses. 

Attest : 

South Trimble, Clerk. 

I hereby certify that the above and foregoing is a true copy of a resolution 
numbered 3S7, passed by the House of Representatives of the United States of 
America. In testimony whereof witness my hand and the official se-^1, as Clerk 
of said House of Representatives, this the 2d day of February, 1914. 

South Trimble, Clerk, 



4 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

At a later date a subcommittee consisting of the following mem- 
bers of the Committee on Mines and Mining was appointed to make 
the investigation in Colorado : M. D. Foster, James F. Byrnes, John 
M. Evans, E. W. Austin, and Howard Sutherland. We went first 
to Denver, then to Trinidad and Walsenberg, the latter places being 
in the southern coal fields and the place of greatest disturbance in 
the State. We spent four weeks in the State, holding sessions day 
and night, and personally examined many of the camps and the 
conditions surrounding them. We examined several hundred wit- 
nesses and took more than 2,000 pages of testimony in an endeavor 
to get the facts in regard to the strike and ascertain if possible the 
causes leading up to it, and ascertain if any Federal law had been 
violated and what might be done to prevent such a condition in the 
future. 

There are employed in normal times about 15,000 coal miners 
in the State. We beg to call attention to the evidence of Mr. Rus- 
sell D. George, State geologist, as to the coal fields of the State, 
page 7, hearings. It should be remembered that in Colorado 
there are large coal deposits of anthracite, bituminous, and sub- 
bituminous coal. The seams range in thickness from 3J to 14 feet. 
There are thousands of square miles of coal lands and estimated 
billions of tons. There is very little shaft mining in the State. The 
coal as a rule is easily mined. It must be remembered that a great 
deal of the coal lands is so situated that it is not practicable to mine 
the coal. In the canyons the mines on the edge have all the ad- 
vantage, and where a company or individual owns the front as it is 
frequently impracticable to get to the coal which lies back of this so 
as to profitably mine it. There are many coal companies and per- 
sons operating in the State, but the three largest are the Colorado 
Fuel & Iron Co., which also operates steel mills at Pueblo; the 
Victor American Fuel Co., and the Rocky Mountain Fuel Co. The 
first of these companies owns and leases about 300,000 acres of coal 
and other lands. 

The Victor American Fuel Co. owns and controls in the Colorado 
fields about 50,000 acres, besides having under lease coal lands in 
New Mexico; the Rocky Mountain Fuel Co. owns and controls ap- 
proximately about 31,000 acres, so that in dealing with the strike these 
three large companies seemed to dominate the coal-producing com- 
panies of the State and were the real power. There are a number 
of independent companies, but they acted with the larger ones and 
seemed to be under their control and protection at all times. A cir- 
cular was issued during the strike signed by the officials of these 
three companies claiming they represented 95 per cent of the coal 
production of the State, and they must have had authority to issue 
such a circular. Colorado has been unfortunate in having a strike 
in its coal mines about each 10 years. They are usually fierce strug- 
gles and always attended with violence, and this one was no excep- 
tion to the rule. 

Considerable testimony on both sides of the controversy we be- 
lieve unreliable and no confidence should be placed in it. Colorado 
has good mining laws and such that ought to afford protection to 
the miner as to safety in the mine if they were enforced, yet in this 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

State the percentage of fatalities is larger than any other, showing 
there is undoubtedly something wrong in reference to the manage- 
ment of its coal mines. It is contended by the miners as one of their 
grievances that the operators do not obey the law, and however good 
the laws may be, if not observed, they are of no protection. 

The testimony of James Dalrymple (pp. 17-47 of hearings), State 
mine inspector, calls attention to the many violations of the law 
by the operators, and the miners claimed this as one of the causes 
leading up to the strike. The report of Mr. Dalrymple also says he 
found in some cases the operators had put in operation new devices 
and systems which were of an advantage to the miners. We exam- 
ined one mine-rescue car at Hastings, owned and operated by the 
Victor American Fuel Co. 

Mr. Edwin V. Brake, deputy labor commissioner and chief factory 
inspector of the State, testifies of the many violations of the law on 
the part of the operators and the difficulty in enforcing the law. 
(Pp. 71-114 of hearings.) 

We desire to call attention to the statement of Gov. Ammons. 
(See pp. 2836-2839, hearings.) 

PRESENT STRIKE. 

The present strike was called about September 23, 1913, after a 
strong effort on the part of the governor and others to prevent it. 
The miners left the employment of the companies, claiming they 
should have had an increase of wages, better working conditions, 
pay for extra work in the mines, check weighman, the right to trade 
where they pleased, and the recognition of the union. It was testi- 
fied by many of the union men that the laws could not be enforced 
and there were continual difficulties to which they were subjected. 
The operators claimed their employees were already well paid. They 
had the eight-hour law, could have the check weighman if they de- 
sired, and they had the right to belong to a union if they so desired. 
In fact, the operators claimed they had made these concessions, ex- 
cept the recognition of the union, to which under no circumstances 
would they agree. 

There was a great deal of testimony of the miners that they were 
denied the right of a check weighman. The company store was in 
operation and in some places scrip was still in use. The fact there 
was conclusive testimony that the miners worked under conditions 
that were in existence in scarcely any State except Colorado. Miners 
testified that if they talked union too much they were sent down 
the canyon. It is true, in the judgment of the committee, that the 
operators did not give as the cause of the discharge of any miner 
that, he belonged to the union, for that would be a violation of the 
law of the State. They might not be compelled to trade at the com- 
pany store, yet in some of the camps there was no other store in 
which tc\trade, and if they went to Trinidad there they again found 
the store of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. 

We desire to especially call your attention to the testimony of Mr. 
J. C. Osgood, president of the Victor American Fuel Co. (pp. 395-485, 
hearings), and Mr. J. F. Welborn, president of the Colorado Fuel & 
Iron Co. (pp. 485-567, hearings), the two largest companies in the 



6 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. * 

Colorado field and involved in the strike, as a presentation of their side 
of the controversy and which fairly represents the attitude of the oper- 
ators. We also in this connection desire to call attention to the testi- 
mony of Mr. J. R. Lawson, a member of the international executive 
board of the United Mine Workers of America, representing district 
No. 15, which comprises Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah, a former 
coal miner, and a citizen of the State of Colorado (pp. 203-298), and 
Mr. E. L. Doyle, a citizen of the State, secretary-treasurer of district 
No. 15, United Mine Workers of America, also a former coal miner 
in Colorado (pp. 2179-2250). 

MILITIA. 

The governor being convinced it was necessary, sent the militia into 
the strike zone in southern Colorado to restore order and preserve the 
peace. The mines were protected before the advent of the militia 
by mine guards, who in some instances were deputy sheriffs and con- 
stables. The militia took a prominent part in the strike and was 
criticized by the striking miners for what they believed to be acts of 
cruelty and what they believed then was partiality shown the opera- 
tors. It seemed to be no trouble to secure a commission as deputy 
sheriff and many commissions were issued, even to men who were not 
citizens of the State. 

The Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency was also employed to furnish 
men to guard the mines, and they swore in a number of men to perform 
service in the strike region. Some of these men were from coal fields 
where strikes had formerly existed, notably from West Virginia, where 
a strike had lately been settled. Some of the machine guns used in the 
late strike in West Virginia were sent from that State to Colorado . Mr. 
A. C. Felts testified that the same machine gun which was used in the 
armored car in West Virginia, and which was given so much publicity 
at the time, was shipped to Trinidad and was purchased by the mine 
operators and was used in Colorado. In all, at least 12 machine guns 
were sent into the coal fields of Colorado. Large quantities of ammu- 
nition were purchased for use among the guards and deputies. The 
militia on going into the strike region had orders from the governor to 
take all firearms, ammunition, and explosives from the strikers and 
guards and proceeded to do so. It was stated that neither side gave 
up all the guns or ammunition in their possession, and such may have 
been and probably was the case. The militia was recruited from the 
citizens of the State, including the mine guards and deputy sheriffs in 
some instances. It was testified to before the committee that men 
who had previously acted as mine guards were divested of their guns, 
but were then sworn in as members of the militia. 

Mr. Montgomery Massingale, wearing the uniform of the State 
militia while on the witness stand, testified before the committee in 
Denver that he was a member of the militia; that he had previously 
been a mine guard in the employ of a coal company and received $3 
per day and was also receiving $ 1 per day from the State as a member 
of the militia.v The recruiting of the mine guards as members of the 
militia, in our judgment, was a mistake, since intense animosity had 
existed for some time between the mine guards and the miners, and 
it was difficult or even impossible for the miners to feel that these 
men were neutral conservators of the peace. Some of the militiamen 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 7 

seized the opportunity, while clothed with the authority of the State, 
to engage in various lawless acts, as the following testimony shows: 

Victoria Yeskenski, a witness called before the committee, speaking through 
Walter Predovich, an interpreter, testified as follows: 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. What is your name? — A. Victoria Yeskenski. 

Q. Where do you live? — A. I am stopping at a ranch near Suffield. 

Q. Do you own the ranch — you and your husband? — A. Yes, sir; my husband filed 
a homestead on that. 

Q. How long have you lived there? — A. Five years and a half. 

Q. Has your husband ever been a coal miner?— A. Yes. 

Q. When? — A. A year and a half since he has worked in a mine. 

Q. Where did he work before that?— A. Gray Creek. 

Q. "What do you do now for a living — you and your husband? — A. I am now selling 
milk for a living, since the mine is closed; and he is there helping me also. 

Q. Helping you on the farm? — A. Yes. 

Q. Is your husband a citizen of the United States? — A. He has his first papers, and 
he has put in his application for the second— his final papers. 

Q. From what country did you come? — A. From Poland. 

Q. How long have you been in this country, you and your husband?— A. My hus- 
band has been here eleven years and a half and I have been here ten and a half. 

Q. Is your husband a cripple?— A. Yes, sir. 

Q. How did he become crippled?— A. He has been a cripple seven years and a half. 
It happened at the Grev Creek mine. 

Q. Is his leg crushed? — A. It was amputated. 

Q. Was it crushed by a fall of coal before it was amputated?— A. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Herrington. Are you trying a damage suit? 

Mr. Costigan. It may have some bearing on what may follow. 

Mr. Herrington. Seven years ago. 

Mr. Costigan. If it were more recent, we might be trying it. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. How many children have you? — A. Five. 

Q. Just give the names.— A. Gustav is the first, and Isabel, Harry, Mary, and 
Bernard. 

Q. How old are they? — A. This boy here is 11. He is the oldest; he is past 11 now. 

Q. What is his name? — A. Gustav. The girl is 7. 

Q. What is her name?— A. Isabel. 

Q. The next? — A. Harry, 6 years old, and Mary is 3£, and the baby, Bernard, is 1^. 

Q. Do they all live on your homestead with you and your husband? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Will you tell the committee what happened to your family on or about February 
10 of this year? — A. On that day I went with my husband to buy a team of horses,- 
because I can't live on this ranch, and we were going to move on a ranch where we 
would have irrigation of water, where we could live, and needed a team; and when I 
came home I found the house in an uproar, the children crying, their faces scratched 
and beat up, and nose3 bleeding — the soldiers had done all this. 

Q. That is what the children said? — A. I sold before this two cows, a calf, a mule, 
a horse, and a bull. I had this $30 with me. I didn't want to carry all the money 
with me, but just $30, and $200 I had in this pocketbook here — this satchel. 

Q. What time did you leave the house on February 10? — A. At half past 11 in the 
morning. 

Q. What time did you come back? — A. Came home at 4.30. 

Q. Did you say the children were crying? — A. When I got home the children were 
all crying and the oldest one told me that the soldiers came and tore everything up 
and unlocked and broke the trunks and scattered the clothes over the room. 

Q. Where were the children when you came home? — A. The younger ones were 
at home in the house and the oldest came outside; he came to meet us. 

Q. What was the appearance of your oldest girl? — A. Why, they were frightened, 
scared, crying, screaming; one of them was bleeding. 

Q. Which one of them was bleeding? — A. Mary. 

Q. Where? — A. She was kicked on the nose; she was bleeding from the nose. 

Q. Did you go to your pocketbook? If so, in what condition did you find it? — A. I 
found the pocketbook under the bed. It was empty. 

Q. Where had you left it when you went away? — A. I had it in that jacket and 
placed it at the bottom of the trunk. 



8 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

Q. Was the trunk locked? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. And when you found it the money was gone, was it? — A. $200. 

Q. Did you report this to the soldiers or militia? — A. Mrs. Walter Boney telephoned 
them and told them to find or try to find the money before they would spend it or 
before it was hid. 

Q. Is she a friend of yours? — A. I don't know her, nor she don't know me; I only 
knew of her, and I went to the telephone at the saloon and told her. 

Q. Did you meet her afterwards? — A. Well, she helped me yesterday — she talked 
for me, because I can't talk that way. 

Q. Did she go to the soldiers with you? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. With whom did you talk? — A. I talked with Gen. Chase and Capt. Smith. 

Q. Have they done anything to help you get your money? — A. He didn't do any- 
thing; he just said he would look — or he would see. 

Q. W T hen did you last see him? — A. The day. before yesterday. 

Q. Have you been told since whether anything further will be done for you or not 
about getting the money? 

Mr. Herrington. You ought to say by whom. 

Mr. Costigan. I will ask that, Mr. Herrington, in just a moment. 

A. Capt. Smith came down to my house Saturday and made a report out at the 
house, examined the trunks, and questioned several of the men there if the trunk 
was broken, and they said it was, and I showed the trunk to him and the ground and 
everything. 

Q. Did he say anything about your not having $200? — A. I waited then Sunday and 
Monday, and I didn't hear anything further, so I went again to town with Mrs. Walters 
and tried to find out what they were going to do with it. 

Q. Was that name Walters or Waldron? — A. Mrs. Walter. 

Q. She is an American woman who talked English and to whom you spoke a little 
while ago? — A. My boy spoke with her, but I couldn't, and she done what she could 
for us. 

Q. How near were the soldiers to your camp? — A. They are at Forbes. 

Q. How far from your home? — A. About 5 miles. 

Q. Was your husband with you when you left the house? — A. Yes; he went with 
me. 

Q. The children were left alone at the house, were they? — A. Yes, sir; the oldest 
boy was taking care of them. 

Mr. Costigan. With the indulgence of the committee and counsel, I would like 
the boy interrogated, perhaps keeping the mother here in case anything is desired or 
asked. It will probably save time. 

(Witness excused.) 

Gustav Yeskexski was called as a witness, and on account of his youth, Mr. 
Herrington stated that he would accept the statement of the witness without his 
being put under oath, and thereupon testified as follows: 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Now, Gusty, will you tell these gentlemen what happened that day when your 
mamma left you and your brothers and sisters at home? You just talk to them the 
way you did to me yesterday, will you? A. They come down to the house 

Q. Who came? — A. A captain and a soldier. 

Q. A captain and a soldier came to the house? — A. The captain was sitting in a 
buggy. 

Q. They drove in a buggy to your house? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. And what happened — did they stop in front of the house? — A. Yes, ma'am, and 
going and tied the horse and one too drunk 

Q. One soldier in the buggy — he too drunk? — A. Yes. 

Q. And was that after your mamma and papa had gone away? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Tell these gentlemen then what happened — after one stayed in the buggy and 
what did the other do? — A. They come in the house and just looking at things, you 
know. 

Q. Where were you at that time; were you in the house? — A. I was outside and my 
sister and 

Q. Did he knock on the door? — A. No, ma'am; he never knocked on the door. 

Q. All right, go ahead. — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Did you follow him in? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Tell these gentlemen what he did.— A. I just went with Lim and when he saw 
I was in there and he go to that trunk and just look and look around and got that 
.22, and just had the .22 in one hand and with the other hand he went in the trunk 
and broke the trunk. 



COLOKADO STEIKE INVESTIGATION. 9 

Q. How did he break the trunk — with what? — A. With an ax. 

Q. Where did he get the ax? — A. Outside. He just went in the room when he 
came in. 

Q. Go in with the ax, did he? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Then he broke open the trunk, did he? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Then what did he do? — A. And he got them clothes — everything out and just 
run down and I says, "No, no; leave them alone, because my mother whip me." He 
says, "Shut up. I shoot you. I am soldier. Shut up," and I got me scared, and I 
cry, and I just look at him, and he just get my mother's clothes and just shake like 
that [indicating], and they was heavy and she had money — $200 — in that coat, and he 
took that, and then it came out, you know. 

Q. You mean the pocketbook came out? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. All right, go ahead and tell these gentlemen. — A. And that pocketbook came 
out, and he was mad, and he opened it, and he never knew how to open it, you know, 
and he just get it broke like that, and I see him, and he just got his coat like that, 
and first get whisky out, and held the .22 like that and get the whisky and get it from 
there and put money in there. 

Q. You mean he took the money out of the pocketbook and put it in his his back 
pocket that way? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Byrnes: 

Q. Where did he put the whisky? — A. Had it in his pocket. 
By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Put the money in right with the whisky bottle, did he? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Then what did he do, Gusty? — A. And then he just get all the clothes out, and 
he got 11 bullets— .38, .40 bullets. 

Q. Where were they? — A. In the trunk. 

Q. In the trunk? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. What did he do with those? — A. Get them and put them in another pocket. 

Q. And then what did he do? — A. He was looking for some more and never found 
any, and after go in 

Q. Did he say anything to you — did you say anything to him about your mamma's 
clothes? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. What did you say? — A. I say like that: "No, no; let that alone, because my 
mother whip me," and he says, "She won't whip you; shut up; I" shoot you," and 
I get me scared and I cry, and my brother— and he kick us — he kick my little baby 
on back. 

Q. That is your little baby brother? — A. A year and a half. 

Q. Go on. — A. And my sister, he kick her in nose, and the nose blood, and another 
little sister, he kick her right here [indicating under the arm],' and my brother, he 
kick him in the back, and he fell down and just all scratched his hand, and after he 
come in 

Q. Did he kick you at all? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Where? — A. Right in the wrist. 

Q. Go on. — A. And after he come right across in the other room, and just he look 
and look around and go in there, and there was eggs in the cupboard, and four he 
drink it, and some he just threw down and broke. 

Mr. Byrnes. He broke some and put in his mouth? 

A. Yes. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. What did he do with the other eggs? — A. Threw them down and broke them. 

Q. Did he throw anything else on the floor? — A. Yes. 

Q. What was it? — A. Some dishes. 

Q. Did he break them? — A. No, ma'am; one just broke. 

Q. One broke? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Then what did he do? — A. After he came out and tried to pee on us, and we 
chased him out, and we cried, and then he call us names, and then he go out, just pee 
right on the porch. 

Q. Then did he go away, Gusty? — A. Yes, ma'am; he went away in buggy. 

Q. Did you follow him in the house when he was going around? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Did you go with him every place he went? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. And did he talk about looking for guns, or say anything about looking for guns? — 
A. Yes. 

Q. What did he say? — A. He said, "You got some guns here." I say, "No; I never 
got," and he saw a .22, and said, "Here is that here." 

Q. Just a .22, was it?— A. My little .22. 



10 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

Q. That was just a little .22 gun? — A. Yes; and he found a bullet, and says, "What 
they here doing around this house," he says. I said, "Nothing, they never do." 
"You got some rifle around here, aint you?" I said, "I never got; I got bullets, that 
is all, and I got .22." He says, "Your brother got some around here, I think." So 
I say 

By Mr. Sutherland: 
Q. Did he take your .22? — A. Yes; ma'am, and seven bullets. 

By Mr. Costigan: 
Q. Did he give you any paper to show he took your .22? — A. No, ma'am. 
Q. Then did he go to the buggy? — A. Yes, ma'am. 
Q. And did you go too? — A. Yes, and I saw some beer in the buggy. 
Q. You saw some beer in the buggy? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. What was the other man in the buggy doing? — A. Just sleeping and look like 
that [nodding his head]. 

By Mr. Sutherland: 

Q. Did he kick you children before he searched the house for your money? — A. Yes, 
ma'am. 

Q. I suppose he wanted to disable the children before they whipped him? — A. 
Ma'am? 

Mr. Sutherland. He probably wanted to disable these children before they whipped 
him. 

By Mr. Byrnes : 

Q. Did he give some money to the other man in the buggy? — A. No, ma'am. 
By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Did he have on a soldier's uniform? — A. Ma'am? 

Q. Did he have on a soldier's uniform — a soldier's coat and clothes? — A. Yes — 
whole suit. 

Q. Did he have a gun or anything? — A. One had pistol and the other had rifle. 

Q. Which one had the rifle — the one in the buggy? — A. The captain. 

Q. And the other had the pistol? 

(No response.) 

Q. Can you tell how this man in the buggy looked? — A. He had a mustache and 
whiskers and glasses on eyes. 

Q. He had glasses, mustache, and whiskers? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Little whiskers all over his face? — A. Just on the chin. 

Q. How did this other man look who kicked you and your sisters and brothers? — 
A. He had [indicating]. 

Q. Side burns — you mean hair growing down here [indicating]? — A. No. 

Q. Beard? — A. Yes, ma'am — just all his face — just looked brown. 

Q. You mean he was brown? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. He was dark — was there hair on his face? — A. No, ma'am. 

The Interpreter. Smallpox pits. 

Q. Oh, he had small pits over the face — smallpox pits? — A. Yes ma'am. 

Q. Do you know, Gusty, whether he talked in American? — A. Who? 

Q. This man who kicked you? — A. Sure, he know all right. 

Q. Did he talk in English or some other language? — A. American. 

Q. American? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Did you notice whether his hair was light or dark? — A. I no see his hair because 
he had here on his ears his cap. 

Q. Had his cap over his hair and over his ears? 

By Mr. Byrnes: 

Q. How close was the nearest house to you — how close does anybody live to you? — 
A. Why, one lives this side Union and another just that way [indicating] half mile. 

Q. Did you go over there and tell these people what these soldiers had done? — 
A. No, ma'am. 

Q. You waited until your mother came home?— A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. How long before she came home? — A. About half past 5. 

By Mr. Sutherland: 
Q. What time was this — about? — What time were they here? A. It was about 
4 o'clock. 
Mr. Costigan. I think that is all. 
Chairman Foster. Any questions? 



COLORADO STEIKE INVESTIGATION. H 

By Capt. Danks: 

Q. What color were his whiskers? — A. Just a little brown — just looked light. 

Q. Sandy? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. He had a cap on, did he? — A. No, ma'am; a hat. 

Q. A hat? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. Do you know whether or not he was a captain? — A. Oh, he had on a [indicating 
around the calves of his legs]. 

Q. Leather — leather leggings? — A. Yes. 

Q. "That was the one that came inside? — A. No; he stay outside in the buggy. 

Q. What did the one have on that came inside? — A. He had cap and he never had 
them [meaning leggings]; he just had on top shoes — boots. 

Q. Do you know anything about their names? — A. No, ma'am. 

Q. Did you tell this to Gen. Chase? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. When did you tell him? — A. Oh, about day before yesterday. 

Q. Do I understand, little boy, that the general was at your house? — A. No; it was 
Capt. Smith. 

Q. Saw him too, all of you A. Yes, ma'am, and my mamma was down there and 

me and my sisters. 

Capt. Danks. I will state to the committee that this matter is now under investiga- 
tion and I am not advised as to the results. I don't have charge of it, but I know it is 
being handled by the general quite vigorously. 

Mr. Austin. Would you have a report of these two men going out on that date? 

Capt. Da.vks. I certainly would. 

Mr. Austin. You have a record, then, of their departure or their movement in and 
out of the camp? 

Capt. Da.nks. Yes. 

By Mr. Byrnks: 
Q. You are sure they came in a buggy, little boy?— A. Yes, ma'am. 
Q. A black horse, brown horse, or what? — A. Brown. 

Q. Brown horse? — A. Yes, ma'am; and black buggy; he had yellow wheels. 
Q. Black buggy with yellow wheels? — A. Yes, ma'am. 
Q. You say you saw some beer in the buggy? — A. Yes, ma'am. 
Q. Just some bottles? — A. No, ma'am — beer. 
Q. Bottles of beer? — A. Yes, ma'am. 
Q. In the back of the buggy? — A. Yes, ma'am. 

Q. And it was a black buggy with yellow wheels? — A. Yes, ma'am. (Witness 
excused.) 

In other instances the acts were of an immoral kind and of such a 
nature as to be unfit for publication in this report. There were acts 
of brutality testified to before the committee which might be enu- 
merated; men on slight provocation were thrown into jail and kept 
there without the opportunity of proving their innocence. There 
were many good men, both officers and privates, in the militia, and 
the strikers testifying said that certain companies were composed of 
kind men and if their houses were to be searched they asked that 
members of these companies might be sent; but that if others were 
sent to do the searching they would be subjected to indignities and 
would probably be robbed of whatever they might have that the 
militia wanted. We might mention some individual members of the 
militia whom we knew, and others we have every reason to believe, 
were men of character and had only the interest of maintaining peace 
and doing justice to both sides of the controversy. 

As one evidence of the treatment of a striker we produce the testi- 
mony of Andrew Colnar. 

Andrew Colnar, a witness called before the committee, on oath testified as follows! 

Examination by Mr. Brewster: 
Q. Your full name is Andrew Colnar? — A. Andrew Colnar. 
Q. Where were you born? — A. In Croatia. 
Q. How long have you been in this country? — A. A little over 18 years in Colorado^ 



12 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

Q. Are you an American citizen? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Have you been a coal miner? — A. That is my own work — profession. 

Q. Business. About the last of November, did you have some interesting experi- 
ence by way of arrest with the militia? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Will you now proceed to tell the gentlemen of this committee in a our own way 
what happened, beginning with about — I think it is, about November 27, wasn't it?— 
A. On the 27th of November, I went to the tent colony — Pr or tent colony — from the 
ranch, where I was living, on the old ranch, 7 miles from here, south. We have a 
meeting there — -union meeting — union lodge meeting, and I heard some people talking 
about somebody; he said somebody want to come down from Prvor camp, want to 
join the union, and he is scared to come down, I understand. I ask the party — I say, 
"Who is that fellow?" He said, "That is your countryman, Billy Antonio vitch." 
I say, "He want to come down?" He say, "Yes, sir." Another fellow told me — he 
said, "I wish there was somebody over here to wrote him a letter — good letter, if he 
Want to come over here, let him come — poor buggers," he say. I understand they 
have a fight with two Mexicans in the mine — Pryor mine — and he got the worst of it — 
the Mexican got the best of it, and I wrote him a letter. 

By Mr. Byrnes: 

Q. You wrote who a letter? — A. To that fellow who wanted to quit work. He was 
working on the strike — scabbing. 

0. You wrote a letter to this fellow who was working? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. All right. — A. I wrote him a good letter. I say— called him good friend — good 
my countryman. "If you want to come down and join the union, we take you down. 
For any trouble I going to be responsible myself. I guarantee you for any trouble; 
you ain't going to get in trouble at all here. Just come down," I said; "that is, if 
you want to," and I signed my name. I send the letter with the other fellow; the 
name is King True. He give him the letter. That was before dinner, the 27th of 
November, Labor Day, I guess. It was before noon. Afternoon they come down — 
that same man. He said, "Andrew, that man is right there in a cut, if you want to 
go there." I say, "Which cut?" He said, "That cut over there." I just went 
there with the other young man, and we met him this side of the cut, about three or 
four hundred yards, and shook hands with him. I asked him if he wanted to go to 
the colony with me. He says, "No: I got ashamed a little bit. I going to quit; I 
going to leave the country." He said, "I don't want to go. Some of them here 
whip me or something." I said, "Nobody want to do anything to you." I says, 
"You are sure you wouldn't come down with me?" He say, "No, sir," and then 
quit talking to him. I didn't want to bother him any more. He take a chance and 
talk with the other fellow — young fellow — John Sheriskey, his name. He asked him 
if he is going to quit the work. He say, " Don't go work any more. Y r ou better leave 
the State if you want to quit." 

By Mr. Byrnes: 

Q. Who told him that? — A. The other young fellow, John Sheriskey is his name. 
And I left them two talking together. I take a walk back to the tent colony. The 
other fellow come in in 15 minutes. That same man go back to the camp, and I hear 
them go to the place after his time. And the super tell him, he said, "You better 
look out 

Q. Did you hear the superintendent tell him this? — A. King True told me 

Q. Don't tell that. After he told you that what did you do?— A. After that? 

Q. Yes.— A. I was in the mine, and we finish and go home that day, and the next 
day I was home, and a young fellow — my brother-in-law — we took a chance — I took 
a shotgun and he took a pick and shovel, and we go along up the arroya for rabbits. 

Q. What did he take? — A. He take a shovel and I took a shotgun. 

Q. Did you catch rabbits with a pick and shovel?— A. He go into a hole sometimes 
and we dig him out. And my brother-in-law saw two militiaman come on horseback 
and he say there some militiamen, and I says, well, let him come, maybe they go to 
Walsenburg, or somewhere, and I saw he took the prairie' — he didn't stay on the public 
road— and I thought he come for the gun. He asked my name and I give him my 
name and I wanted to give him the shotgun and he said no, he don't want no shotgun, 
you are arrested, you come with us, and he took me over to the Midway and the soldiers 
was up there and they bring me to the place where the soldiers were and he tried to put 
me in a kind of a hole— cellar— some kind of a hole, and the jail was filled up with 
some kind of Mexicans and colored people, and he keep me in men's wash room — sol- 
diers' wash room, in the night time. That was on Friday, the 28th of November, and 
they tied my hands in what you call handcuffs and the soldiers watched me all night 
and give me a mattress there on the floor there, and the same night Capt. Drake came 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 13 

and he wanted to hear something from me — he asked me who is the boss of that union 
local there, and I said there is nobody boss, we all the same, and he said, somebody run 
that local, and he said, "Don't you know anything arbout some kind of a notice," and 
I said, "I don't know anything about a notice." "Did you ever write any?" And I 
said, "No." And he showed me a letter "You write that notice?" And I said, "That 
is not notice, that is regular letter, I write that letter." That is in that envelope a 
regular letter, and he raising hell with me, and I thought he going to lick me with the 
gun, he was pretty cranky and mean. 

Capt. Frost. Does the committee consider this material as to what transpired be- 
tween this man and the captain after his arrest or do they merely want to inquire into 
the circumstances of this arrest? 

Mr. Byrnes. I think they only have one or two witnesses on matters of this kind, 
and he should go on. 

Q. Who was this man? — A. Capt. Drake, I guess his name — I heard Drake his name, 
And he wanted to make me wrote some letter that time, he give me piece of paper and 
pencil and he says you have to wrote some letter, and I say I can not do it; and he say, 
you remember what you wrote, I remember some but not all, if you show me the letter 
I can make from that letter and wrote another one, and he said he going to keep me 
mabe two weeks to wrote that letter, and I said I don't care how much you keep me to 
wrote that letter, and I took pencil and wrote some of that letter, I don't remember, 
After that he keep me in the room there, and the second night — that night was Thurs^ 
day— Friday. Friday evening they try put me in jail, that same jail. 

By Mr. Austin: 
Q. How long did they keep you in jail? — A. Three days and two nights. 
Q. What became of the rabbit? — A. Three days and two nights. 

By Mr. Byrnes: 

Q. What did they put you in there for? What did they tell you they had you there 
for?— A. For the letter. 

Q. Wasn't it for going after a man who had been at work? — A. Huh? 

Q. Wasn't it for carrying the gun, or because you had gone after a fellow who was at 
work? — A. No; I got arrested what for I wrote the letter to try to get men out of the 
camp. 

Q. That is what they had you there for? — A. Yes. 

Q. How long did they keep you in jail? — A. Three days and two nights. 

Q. Did they turn you out then? — A. I just tell you — Saturday I get a room — Satur- 
day evening he tried to put me in jail again — a small cell, and they put me there and it 
was maybe all right, I got up there, and I was laying there— it was awful dirty, full of 
lice, and I tell the soldiers up there I can not sleep in there, it is too dirty for me, I am 
going to stand up all night. I guess yes, some kind of people was in there, and they 
take me up again and put me in the same room there and after while some officer come 
in and ask me what church I belong to, and I say Roman Catholic. All right, he ask 
me, and Sunday morning he ask me how I get along and I said all right, and I get a 
little better along in that room, the sorrow isn't very much for me, and he says, it is 
not, but you don't know what you are going to get. On Sunday, about 8 o'clock — 
between 8 and 9 o'clock — he took me out of the jail and he brought me out of the house 
and he got me a pick and shovel and two soldiers took me about 30 or 40 feet from the 
house and he showed me the ground marked already with a pick — he says, here is your 
job — 2\ feet wide, 6 feet long. 8 feet deep. You dig this, and I started to dig pretty 
quick 

By Mr. Byrnes: 

Q. What were you hurrying for? — A. I thought maybe they want to give me some 
kind of a job, and when I finish I go home. Then I was digging for awhile; the sol- 
diers came around and they asked guards, "What's that going to be, a toilet?" and he 
said, "No; we got a toilet over there; " and another two soldiers came around, and he 
says, "That looks to me like somebody going to get buried in there;" and he says — he 
• told this same man — he says. "There is the man, who is digging it. " 

Q. What did you say to that? — A. When the soldiers go away I said to this man t 
* .' You sure ? ' ' and he says , ' ' Yes . " 

Q. Did you stop digging then? — A. Not right away; I dig a little more slow. 

Q. Go ahead. — A. And after that some of them came around and say, "What are 
you going to use, blanket or coffin?" Some of them say blanket and some of them 
coffin. And they got two guards, two soldiers, and they take me out, and the officers 
come when they take me out and put me in front of the line and told me to be ready. 
I think they going to shoot me. They go to a place on the hill a little bit level. 

Q. They put you on the level?— A. Yes; they leveled the ground. 



14 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

Q. What were you doing there? — A. They watch me with a bandage; I never move 
at all. 

Q. Didn't you do some praying?— A. No; not there. After that they take me 
back up on the hill and they say, "Dig, and hurry up." I started to dig awhile, 
and then another soldier walked up to me and the guards stop him and say, "Where 
you want to go?" and he say, "I want to talk to this man." And he say. "We don't 
let nobody talk to this man, nobody." He say, "I am going to talk to him in his 
own language; I got orders." And he come close to me, and he ask me how am I, 
and I say, "Not much." This was in the Folish language. 

Q. What did you mean by "Not much"? — A. I told him T didn't feel very much, 
"I understand I am digging my own grave." And he say, "friend, I am sorry to 
tell you, but you are digging your own grave; you are going to be shot to-morrow 
morning, the 1st of December." He told me that in my own language. 

Q. The 1st of December? — A. I said, "What have you heard anything about it — 
what for?" He said, "I don't know; you must have done something bad," some- 
thing like that. "You are sure?" I say. He say, "Yes; everybody knows it already. 
They are sure going to kill you to-morrow morning." He said, "About three men 
going to shoot you." and I guess I fell down in the hole. 

Q. You were scared? — A. Yes; I believe; he make me believe. 

Q. This man who talked to you in your own language? — A. Yes; he make me 
believe. I go to see the officer to send for my wife and children before they kill me 
to talk to them, and he say, "Nothing doing." I was crying; I say, "Give me a 
piece of paper, I want to write to them something," and he say, "Nothing doing." 

Q. They weren't going to shoot you until the next morning; what did you hurry up 
for? — A. He wanted to finish digging. He said dig and hurry up; if you don't dig he 
raised hell with me; if I don't dig they shoot me before that time. 

Q. Well, why didn't you strike right then? — A. Well, I feel pretty bad and I can 
not do any more — he make me believe. 

By Mr. Brewster: 
Q. When did the men speak to you about being buried in blankets or a coffin? 
Mr. Herrington. Oh, he is away past that. 

By Mr. Brewster: 

Q. Did they put you back in jail? — A. They put me back in jail. The officer came 
there and he put me down in the ground in the cellar, and they shut the door, and 
after a while the other officer came, and the other officer asked me what's the matter, 
and he says to that fellow, "I guess he is pretty near crazy; you better do something 
for him."" Well, after a while Capt. Drake came and take me out. 

Q. Took you out? — A. Yes; the two soldiers bring me out of the jail, and he gave 
me a good story; he says, "Now, I turn you loose; you go home and stay with your wife 
and children, and don't write any more, and don't talk anything, and don't go any 
place from the place where you are living, because I get you again in five days; I get 
you again." And so I was very glad w r hen he turned me loose. When I came to the 
house the woman was pretty nearly crazy. She sent her brother to telephone to the 
soldiers if she couldn't come over there and see me or something, and they wouldn't let 
her come there at all. When I got home I dress myself; I clean myself; get some of 
those lice off of me that I got in the jail, and I go to Walsenburg here to headquarters. 

Q. Who did you report it to? — A. To headquarters here. 

Q. Headquarters of what? — A. Union headquarters, and then they took me to a 
notary public. 

Q. Did you report it to any of the military people at Walsenburg? — A. No; I don't 
want to see them any more — I think this way 

By Mi. Brewster: 

Q. Did you report it to the governor of this State? — A. I will come to that. I think 
that evening the gentleman over there, from the Denver Express, he put that story 
in the Denver papers, and when that come out somebody— some officer from the 
Klein Hotel called me at the tent colony and told me to come to Walsenburg — some 
officer called me and I said I don't go to Walsenburg. It costs me 40 cents, and I 
know if I go down there he arrest me again. So I take a train for Trinidad, and from 
Trinidad I take the Santa Fe and hide myself in Pueblo. I got a son-in-law up there, 
and I was hiding there; my woman she told me I better go away, I be sure of you. 
When that convention was in Denver they took me up there and I told the story in the 
convention on the platform, and I told it to the governor, and he started to laugh 

Q. Who, the governor?— A. Yes. I told him he would not laugh if he could see 
down there and see what they were doing with me, and I said, I w'ouldn't laugh 
neither, because I lived so many years in Colorado and I know what kind of treatment 
we got from these coal operators. 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 15 

Q. When did you take out your papers to become an American citizen? — A. The 
first paper I took out about 17 years ago. 

Q. When did you get your other papers? — A. The second paper I got out about 10 
years ago, 1904. 

Q. Do you remember January 4, when there was a procession, and Mother Jones 
was being deported? — A. I was right here in the depot. 

Q. What did you carry that day? — A. A United States flag. 

Q. Did you ever see the militia carry a United States flag? — A. No, sir; I did not. 

By Capt. Forbes: 

Q. Do you usually go out hunting for rabbits with a pick and shovel? — A. I had a 
shotgun. 

Q. You said the other man had a pick and shovel? — A. My brother-in-law had a 
pick and shovel. 

Q. Isn't it true that you went out to dig up some guns, some buried guns, some- 
where? — A. No, sir. 

Q. You usually hunt for rabbits with a pick and shovel? — A. Yes; we all do in 
southern Colorado. You get more rabbits with a pick and shovel than you do with a 
3hotgun. 

Q. Who was it demanded to talk to you in your own language? — A. A militiaman. 

Q. Did he talk to you in your own language? — A. In the Polish language; I under- 
stand that just the same as my language. 

Q. Do you know the name of this soldier? — -A. He didn't come over there to give 
me his name. 

Q. He didn't give you his name? — A. He didn't talk to me to give me his name; 
he talked to me to do this brutality. 

Q. And you say he talked to you in your own language, in Polish? — A. Yes. 

Q. Isn't it a matter of fact that it is quite frequent to dig these places a certain 
shape and size as you describe for use as toilets? — A. What? 

Q. Isn't it customary — aren't soldiers in camps everywhere digging latrines or 
toilets of this character? — A. No; he didn't tell me he was digging it for a toilet, or 
anything like that. 

Q. Isn't it. as a matter of fact, what the place was used for? — A. He told me it was 
to be my grave. 

Q. Isn't that what it was used for? — A. I don't understand you. 

Q. Isn't that what the place was used for after you got through digging it? — A. What 
it was used for? 

Q. After you got through digging it wasn't it used as a latrine or toilet? — A. They 
didn't use it for anything I don't think. I guess if you take me over there maybe 
I can show you the place. I could find the place now. 

Q. Isn't it true that the soldier boys were just joshing with you? — A. Just joshing 
with me, they say that? 

Q. Just joshing? — A. He is a liar; he never told me he was joshing; he told me they 
would kill me. 

Q. I had an experience like this in my own camp. The men were digging a toilet, 
and in that case thev took it all in good fun and he was the one that joshed as they 
were making him dig it. 

Chairman Foster. That is a speech, Captain. We would not care to have that in 
the record. 

By Mr. Evans: 

Q. Was that an individual experience, Captain? 

Capt. Forbes. Yes. 

Q. How long did they keep you in jail. Captain? — A. I said in my camp 

Mr. Byrnes. He said it wasn't himself; it was in his camp. 

Capt. Forbes. Isn't it true that, as a matter of fact, you joshed back and forth with 
these soldiers and talked to them about this matter just as customarily happens under 
such circumstances — isn't this, as a matter of fact, something that happened 50 places 
in this vicinity and that you were joshing back and forth between the men, talking 
with the soldiers 

Mr. Byrnes. Ask him whether he was joking them or not. 

Q. Isn't it true that that is a matter that occurs rather frequently, and that there 
is a good deal of joking back and forth between the soldiers and the men? — A. No, 
sir; I didn't understand it was joking. He told me there was no joking at all; "he 
told me there was trouble; they were going to shoot, and I believed it. too: I believe 
they would do it right in this county. 



16 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

By Mr. Brewster: 

Q. Did you really think they were going to shoot you and bury you in that grave?— 
A. Yes. 

Q. Did you understand that it was a joke among the militia boys? — A. I under- 
stood that I was going to get killed. 

John M. Chase, adjutant general of the militia of the State, was 
overbearing to all who come in contact with him. He was given an 
opportunity to explain the acts of the militia, but refused to do so 
unless he could be assured that he would not be questioned by repre- 
sentatives of the miners. We refused to accede to his request and 
felt that if he wished to permit the record to show this damaging 
testimony was undisputed it might so remain. A representative 
of the militia was present during the taking of testimony and was 
accorded every right to be heard in examination of witnesses on 
matters concerning the militia. Gen. Chase issued a defense of the 
militia after we left the State, saying in this statement that it was for 
the benefit of the committee. The committee through the chairman 
wrote to the governor that it would not be made a part of the testi- 
mony as this man had been given the opportunity to testify and had 
refused to do so. Defenseless women and children did not escape the 
• brutality of some of the members of this military organization. 
! Many people were thrown into foul and miserable cells and kept 
there for days without any opportunity to prove their innocence, 
and were then released. It is to be regretted that the governor and 
those directly in control of the military forces of the State of Colo- 
rado did not succeed better in maintaining stricter discipline and a 
clearer conception of their duty than was exhibited by many of these 
militiamen. It is true, of course, that such forces are nastily recruited 
and are largely composed of raw and inexperienced men of little 
judgment or self-restraint. It should have been the duty of the 
militia to restore peace, protect property, and prevent violence, and 
to act impartially between both sides of the controversy, and it 
would have been as wrong to have taken the side of the miners 
as it was of the operators. Similarly, to have sworn in men among 
the strikers as members of the militia would have been an out- 
rage on the operators. It seemed the militia was on the side of 
the operators in this controversy, and the evidence seems conclusively 
to prove such to have been the case. The duty of the armed force 
of the State should have been to protect property and prevent vio- 
lence, and we believe that if proper judgment had been used by those 
in charge of the military force much of the violence which resulted 
in such destruction of property and loss of life could have been pre- 
vented. Those whose duty it is to preserve peace should realize 
that their actions should be impartial to both sides, and unless that 
attitude is maintained they can not maintain order, and the feeling 
against them by the side against which they are acting will sooner or 
later become so hostile that their presence will have a tendency to 
create disorder and violence. Quiet and order can never be restored 
when disorder exists, and peace can not be maintained, when such 
conditions in the military forces in any State in this country are per- 
mitted to exist. Such tactics are a relic of days long since past and 
should not be allowed to exist any place in a civilized country. The 
sooner men armed in the service of the State learn that the men with 
whom they may deal may be poor and ignorant, and even violators 




COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 17 

of the law, but are still human, the better it will be for all concerned 
under such circumstances. 

VIOLENCE. 

The testimony of Mr. Welborn on the part of the operators shows 
that before the strike was called, each side was preparing to protect 
its interests. Mr. Welborn states that the operators had bought 
guns and ammunition along about the 16th of September, and he also 
states in justification of such action that the miners had purchased 
guns and ammunition before this time. There is no doubt that the 
miners did purchase guns and ammunition about this time or soon 
after. 

Mr. A. C. Felts, of the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency, had men j 
brought into the State, and sworn in as detectives, who were not 
residents of the State, and employed others who were residents of ; 
the State, most of them being commissioned as deputy sheriffs. I 
Others were members of the detective agency and were stationed in 
the coal fields where the strike then existed, and those on both sides 
of the controversy being armed numerous clashes began to occur. 
From the time the strike was called until the Federal troops were 
sent into the field by the President of the United States there was a 
series of battles which seemed to be fierce while they lasted and a 
number of people were killed and wounded on both sides. The most 
severe of these battles were called the Forbes, Berwind, Seventh 
Street in Walsenburg, La Veta, and Ludlow, culminating in the 
greatest and most destructive of all, the last battle of Ludlow, 
about the 20th of April, 1914. Ludlow was the place near which the 
families of the miners lived in tents after they left the coal camps 
when the strike began. It is not denied that the strikers bought guns 
and ammunition, which were claimed to have been purchased for use 
in defending themselves and their homes, and, no doubt, there was 
an element among those men that seemed determined to win the 
strike by destroying property, and if necessary to take human fife. 
It is to be regretted that if a strike must come that it can not be con- 
ducted without resorting to such means to win. The attack on the 
Berwind camp was inexcusable. It appeared from the testimony 
that certain men, whose identity was unknown, but who were alleged 
to be strikers or their friends, were posted on the hills near by the 
camp and fired many shots into and about the houses in the camp, 
in one instance wounding two children in their home. The attack 
on the Forbes Tent Colony, by guards fully armed and using a machine 
gun, seems to us to have been equally unjustifiable from any stand- 
point. In this attack the lives of noncombatants, including women 
and children, were jeopardized, one child, a boy about 12 years of 
age, falling with nine wounds; but he recovered, and appeared before 
the committee as a witness. This condition of violence became 
greater and greater as time went on until men on either side seemed 
to have little regard for the taking of human life or the destruction 
of property. 

It is to be regretted that in strikes like the one then existing in 
Colorado there should be an element connected with it on either side 
which cares but little for the law and believes in the use of brutal 

H. Doc. 163QS 63-3 2 



18 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

force to win a point and thinks that it is the only way a settlement 
, may be brought about. It is impossible to say which side was re- 
sponsible for starting the trouble in each of these battles, but the 
trouble might have all been avoided had there been a willingness to 
treat with each other in a humane way and to try and arrive at a 
peaceable solution of the difficulty. 

We believe that each side was ready to do battle with the other, 
even when the strike was first called, and had supplied themselves 
with the weapons and ammunition necessary for self-defense, which 
they gave as their reason for securing guns and ammunition. 

The system of mine guards was in existence when the strike first 
began, and clashes with them began to occur. A private guard 
system may be thought necessary, but wherever it exists sooner or 
later trouble will occur, and proper officers of the law should be 
substituted, who will be impartial in maintaining peace and order. 

POLITICAL CONDITIONS. 

There was some testimony taken in reference to political conditions 
in the southern Colorado coal fields. There did not seem to be any 
complaint in any coal camp outside of the Las Animas and Huerfano 
Counties as to the domination of the coal operators in political matters. 
We did not believe that we had a right to investigate political con- 
ditions within the State only so far as they might be a cause of dis- 
satisfaction among the miners and one of the reasons leading up to 
the strike. 

The polling places were in some instances located within the mining 
camp. It was claimed that the coal companies attempted to control 
the vote of the miners, and we beg to incorporate as a part of this 
report the evidence of Mr. John McQuarrie, formerly undersheriff of 
Huerfano County, being appointed by Jefferson Farr, sheriff of the 
county. He filled the office for several years and must have known 
the conditions existing during all these years. 

John McQuarrie was called as a witness and, having been first duly sworn, testified 
as follows: 

Examination by Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Please state your name and occupation? — A. John McQuarrie. 

Q. "What is your occupation? — A. I have been up until October a special agent of 
the Colorado & Southern Railway. 

Q. What are you doing now? — A. At present I have been assisting Mr. Hawkins 
and Mr. Clark in cases. 

Q. As representative of the United Mine Workers of America? — A. As representative 
of the United Mine Workers of America. 

Q. What did you do prior to your employment as special agent of the Colorado & 
Southern? — A. I was undersheriff of Huerfano County, Colo. 

Q. Under Mr. Jefferson Farr of that county? — A. Under Jefferson B. Farr. 

Q. How long did you occupy that position? — A. From April, 1903, to April, 1909. 

Q. Do you know any facts which might be characterized as causes leading up to the 
present strike, coming within your own knowledge, while acting as deputy sheriff or 
undersheriff in that county? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Please state them to the committee. — A. One of the facts is the blacklist main- 
tained against the men, and another is there 

Q. Please speak a little bit louder.— A. One of the facts is the blacklist maintained 
against men and another is the discrimination of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. in 
politics, especially in Huerfano County. That has had a great deal to do with this 
present trouble — causes leading up to it. 

Q. Why were you let out as special agent for the C. & S., if you know? 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 19 

■ Mr. Herrington. I am going to tell this committee this is a private grievance. I 
don't believe we should go into this. It is a private grievance. It didn't lead up 
to the strike. He was let out a long time after the strike was called. 

By Mr. Costigan: 
Q. Was it a private grievance? — A. Not that I know of. 

Q. What statements, if any, were made to you as reasons for the discontinuance of 
your work? 
Mr. Herrington. May I ask the witness a question? 
Mr. Costigan. I think you may. 

By Mr. Herrington: 
Q. You weren't let out until after the strike was called and was in force some time, 
were you? — A. I was discharged on the 28th day of October. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. 1913?— A. 1913. 

Q. Can you give the reasons? 

Mr. Herrington. I think Jack and I can fix this up. I don't think the committee 
ought to hear this. 

A. I was called into Denver ■ 

Chairman Foster. We have taken into consideration a good many things since the 
strike began by both sides. 

The Witness. I was called to Denver by a telegram from the general superin- 
tendent of the road, brought up at his office. He showed me a letter stating that the 
merchants of the city of Walsenburg had requested my removal; alsa that I had been 
eeen in consultation with John McLennan and Frank Hayes, and for that reason I 
was evidently working against the interests of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., and should 
be discharged from the service of the road. The letter was signed by J. F. Welborn. 
I stated to the general superintendent just how I came to be in consultation with 
McLennan and Hayes. I was there at the instigation of the division superintendent 
to straighten up a matter, and he told me that that would be all right. I went back 
to Trinidad and went to work, and that was on the 19th of October, and on the 28th 
the division superintendent told me that the C. F. & I. was after me and that night 
there was a man relieved me and I was paid off. On the 1st day of November I 
received the appointment of assistant chief special agent of the Santa Fe. territory 
extending from Las Vegas, N. Mex., to Newton, Kans. On the 15th of the month 
my chief informed me that he had been requested to discharge me. The C. F. & I. 
didn't want me in this territory. He refused to do it and he transferred me from 
the Trinidad district to the district between La Junta and Newton, Kans., and on 
the 22d of November I received a message to come into La Junta and J. M. Kern, the 
general superintendent, discharged me and wouldn't give me any reason; wouldn't 
even see me in the office. So that is what I know about boycotting — blacklisting. 

Q. While acting as special agent for the C. & S. did you ever have any request for 
the taking of guards along the road? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. State the facts as to that subject. — A. Mr. W. J. Murray called me into his office 
one day and asked me what I intended to do about placing guards on the big bridge — 
the Sopris trestle — and I told him that I didn't have anything to do with that; that 
that was up to my chief; that it had already been taken up by the division super- 
intendent and they would attend to that matter; that I had nothing to do with that 
and he also asked why I allowed all these strikers to congregate and gather around 
the depot at Ludlow, at Rugby, and at Walsenburg. I told him that that was a matter 
for the civil authorities to attend to; that I wasn't supposed to police those depots; 
that the depots were public property, and they could congregate there whenever 
they wished to. 

Q. Did you have any trouble with the strikers? — A. I never had any trouble with 
the strikers at all. Well, I did have a little trouble. On the night of the 16th of 
October — that afternoon, I was in Pueblo, and Mr. McGee, the chief clerk, I believe, 
for Mr. Weitzel, approached me and told me he was going to send 10 niggers down to 
Lester and asked me if I would see that they were not molested; said the man in 
charge of them was a new man and didn't know how to handle those affairs. I told 
him if they were passengers on the road I would see that they were not molested. 
He said there were two union pickets — a nigger and a Slav — with them; they had 
already notified Walsenburg that they were going to be taken off the train there. 
When the train came into Walsen Junction I had the niggers up in the nigger end of 
the coach. I locked the front door of the coach and told the conductor to only open 
one vestibule. He inspected all the tickets to see that everyone getting on the train 
had tickets. There was two men got on it, and they started to go in among the niggers. 



20 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

I told them they could occupy the body of the coach; that there was plenty of room. 
They objected to it, and we had an argument, and I finally told them that "If you 
want to sit with the niggers, go in," but I went in and said, "If you want to talk to 
these people, you can talk to them, but you can't make any threats or intimidation 
or anything of that kind." Says I, "If you do I will put you off the train." So they 
rode to where the niggers got off, and after the niggers got off they took the matter 
up with the conductor, and said that they had been insulted, and threatented to 
sue the company, and we had a kind of a three-cornered argument there and it got 
pretty hot two or three times. That was the only trouble that I had with them then. 

Q. Were any threats made against you, or was it just an argument? — A. No, no 
threats; they threatened to get me — that is, get me fired from the railroad because 
I was exceeding my authority, not being the conductor of the train. 

Q. You didn't refer to threats of physical violence? — A. No; no threats of physical 
violence. 

Q. Reverting to another phase of the matters being inquired into by the committee, 
while acting as undersheriff in Huerfano County, did you ever have occasion to visit 
election precincts on election day? — A. Yes, sir; I used to visit pretty near all of 
them — well, not all of them, but precincts in Walsenburg and precincts close to 
Walsenburg. 

Q. Do you remember any particular incident connected with elections there 
tending to show political control by the large coal companies of that section of the 
State? — A. Well, yes; they were all practically controlled — the superintendents 
and the bosses. 

Q. Were the superintendents and bosses active at election times? — A. Always active — 
always active as workers. At the election of 1908 — at the time that Kenehan run for 
State treasurer — on the morning of election the sheriff came to me and told me that he 
wanted me to go to Maitland precinct ; he said that Kenehan was over there snooping- 
around; had already been at the Toltec precinct, and for me to go over there and 
take the old son of a gun and throw him out. 

By Mr. Sutherland: 
Q. That is in Huerfano County? — A. In Huerfano County. 

Q. For what office was Kenehan running? — A. He was running for State treasurer, 
and he told me to go with the county attorney. We got in a machine and started over 
there. While on the way over the county attorney and I got to talking it over, and I 
told the county attorney that he, being a candidate for State office, we had better go- 
slow and he agreed v^ith me, so when we got over there we found Mr. Kenehan in the 
E oiling place. I went in and told him who I was, and told him I would like to see 
im outside, and be came outside. I introduced him to the county attorney and he 
wanted to know what we had come over for. I told him I had orders from the sheriff 
to prevent him from going into any of these polling places, and he took it good-natur- 
edly, called up his driver and dismissed the rig, and said he guessed he would ride 
with us fellows — got in the machine and came back to Walsenburg. 

By Mr. Austin: 
Q. Didn't he have a right under the Colorado law to be in the voting precinct? — A. 
Yes, sir. 

Q. That is the right of candidates ? — A. Yes, sir. 

By Mr. Evans: 
Q. Did he see Jeff when he come back? — A. He saw Jeff when he come back and 
Jeff put the machine at his disposal and telephoned the precincts he was coming and 
sent him around to the different precincts. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Was Mr. Jeff Farr an active political force during the year you lived in Huerfano 
County? — A. Jeff has been a active political force ever since he received the appoint- 
ment when his brother was killed. 

Q. Did you ever see him in conference with the representatives of the leading coal 
companies in that section of Colorado? — A. Yes, sir; I have. 

Q. Did he ever speak of his relations with those coal companies? — A. He makes a 
brag— he don't deny the fact that he is a Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. man — that anything 
they want he will do. 

Q. He has made that statement, has he, in your presence? — A. He has made that 
statement hundreds of times in my presence and always impressed on me the neces- 
sity of standing in and being a Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. man. 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 21 

By Mr. Austin: 
Q. And you served under him seven years? — A. I served under him seven years; 
yes, sir. 

By Mr. Evans: 
Q. By the way, did you ever serve on a jury down there while you were deputy 
sheriff? — A. I did not. 

By Mr. Austin : 
Q . Having served under him seven years, what do you say of him as a man and as 
a sheriff? — A. Well, Jeff is no sheriff. 
Q. How? — A. Jeff is no sheriff. 

By Mr. Evans: 

Q. That is not his forte? — A. Not his forte. He is a good wirepuller. 
By Mr. Austin: 

Q. He knows how to select a good deputy, doesn't he? — A. He says he can hire 
sons of b s to do that work; that he won't do it. 

Q. Well, he was good to you, wasn't he? — A. He was good to me in this way 

Q. Gave you a job seven years? — A. He gave me a job there, and I had a reputation 
of being a pretty good officer previous to that. I have had a commission in Las Animas 
County ever since 1888, and he gave me a job because he wanted a man, and at that 
time I needed a job awfully bad. I was undersheriff, jailer, and kept the books for 
him, and he promised that later on I might have the sheriff's office, but I found out 
that he wasn't going to stick up to the promise, so I quit. He said that he didn't have 
confidence in me. There was a great many things that he put up to me that I wouldn't 
do. I never done anything there that I was ashamed of. I regret very much that I 
stayed with him the length of time I did, being the class of man that he is. Every- 
thing that I done there was straight. I never went out and beat people over the head 
as some of his men have; as, for instance, there is a case of this man Lawson. Jeff Fair 
came to me and asked me, says 

By Mr. Costigan: 
Q. You refer to John R. Lawson here? — A. John R. Lawson. In 1906 Farr came to 
me and wanted me to "get" Lawson in some way. I told him no, I didn't want to 
do any of that kind of work. Says I, "If you have a warrant for Lawson, give it to 
me and I will get him, but I don't want to ao no crooked work, Jeff." The next day 
I went out to serve the summonses — it was just before the fall term of the district 
court 

By Mr. Austin: 

Q. What year? — A. 1906 — serving the summonses, and when I returned the next 
night Lawson was in the county jail. Well, I went over to the office and met Jeff and 
Severio Martinez — Severio Martinez was the night marshal of Walsenburg. I asked 
what Lawson was downstairs there for — had seen the mittimus on the desk — the mit- 
timus was on the desk for me to enter up in the sheriff's office. They began to laugh 
and told me how Lawson came in there 

Q. Who told you? — A. Jeff and Severio Martinez. They said that they had 
"framed up" on him. They had caught him on the upper end of Main Street as he 
was going out of town that night and stuck a gun in his pocket and arrested him for 
carrying concealed weapons. The gun was an old gun that had laid around the 
sheriff's office for a long while. He had already been sentenced to 30 days in the 
county jail and $50 fine. I never done any of that kind of work for him. 

By Mr. Austin : 

Q. How long after that did you remain with him? — A. I remained in all two years. 
By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Did you see Mr. Lawson in jail at that time? — A. Yes, sir; I seen him. 

Q. How long was he kept in jail after this "frame up"? — A. To the best of my 
recollection, for six or seven days. I could tell if I had the jail record. 

Q. Was he comfortably housed? — A. Well, he occupied a cell — cell No. 1 — with 
Ed. McClure — a fellow by the name of McClure. I don't know exactly the condi- 
tion of the cell. It was an iron cell in the cage. There was one bunk in there; I 
know that. 

Q. Was he warmly covered and well fed? — A. Well, at that time we didn't have 
much covering in the jail. We had an order in for new bunks, and cover. I don't 
know whether Mr. Lawson — some prisoners had ]uenty of cover — I don't know whether 
Mr. Lawson had it or not. 



22 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Were the cells kept in a clean or filthy condition? — A. The jail is very insani- 
tary — always has been; it is impossible to keep it in a sanitary condition. 

Q. You said he was arrested and held without warrant? — A. He was arrested by 
the city officers and tried before the justice of the peace and turned over to the county 
authorities. 

Q. He later appealed his case, did he not? — A. He appealed his case and was 
released upon appeal bond. 

Mr. Austin. Who did the sheriff send out to make the arrest? 

The Witness. Severio Martinez, the night marshal, and Juan Medina. 

Mr. Austin. They were city officials and not county? 

The Witness. They were city officials. 

Q. Have you known of other unwarranted arrests of that character in Huerfano 
County? 

Mr. Evans. Before you go into that, Governor, let me ask what connection, if any, 
did Farr have to this arrest of Lawson? I didn't quite get that. You say the city 
authorities arrested him? 

The Witness. Well, Farr dominates and appoints and controls the city election 
also, and when I refused to do this work he got Martinez to do it, so as to get Lawson 
into the county jail. 

Mr. Sutherland. Were those people also deputy sheriffs? 

The Witness. They are both deputy sheriffs. 

Mr. Sutherland. In addition to holding city offices 

The Witness. In addition to holding city offices they were both deputy sheriffs. 

Mr. Sutherland. In that way he had control of them directly? 

The Witness. He has control of them and appoints 

Mr. Sutherland. Aside from his political influence over the city officers. 

The Witness. He has entire control over the city affairs as well as the county affairs. 

Mr. Austin. How often do they elect sheriffs? 

The Witness. Every two years since 1904 — well, they have every two years. 

Q. Did you ever know of an instance of men being arrested by the sheriff through 
peace authorities in Huerfano County and held until they agreed to vote a certain 
political ticket? — A. Yes, sir; there has been instances of that kind, where men have 
been arrested and put in jail and held until their relatives agreed to "come through" 
and stay with the gang. Anesita Martine, who lives up Turkey Creek, was arrested. 
That is one instance that I know of, but there has been other instances that I can not 
give the names of unless I could have the jail record. If I had the jail record, I could 
give the names. 

Q. Have you ever known of instances of men being arrested for alleged offenses, 
such as cattle stealing, the men being subsequently permitted to go free on the promise 
that they would vote a certain political ticket? — A. Yes, sir; there has been instances 
of that. 

Q. Which came to your personal knowledge? — A. Yes. 

Q. Is that true?— A. Yes. 

Mr. Austin. That happened while you were undersheriff? 

The Witness. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Austin. Were you a party to that machine? ^ 

The Witness. No, sir; I was not a party to it. I was not a party to any of these 
"frame-ups." I was never on the inside of these deals, for the simple reason, as I 
stated before, Farr said that he didn't have confidence in me. The reason I stayed 
there the length of time I did, was a bunch of my friends up in the north end of the 
county used to tell Jeff, "Well, if you will keep Jack there, we will vote for you"; 
he always runs ahead of his ticket, through these friends of mine that wanted me to 
stay there, hoping that sometime or other they might be able to get me in. 

Mr. Austin. You are the next superior officer to the sheriff? 

The Witness. Yes, sir. 

Mr. Evans. Jeff was a Texas Democrat, wasn't he? 

The Witness. Jeff was a Texas Democrat; yes, sir. When he ran for sheriff the 
first time his father was there from Texas — this is aside — the old gentleman found 
out he was running on the Republican ticket, and he was going to whip him, and 
the other boys had to get the old man out of the State. 

Mr. Sutherland. I don't blame them. 

Mr. Austin. You say he succeeded his brother some way? 

The Witness. His brother Ed was elected sheriff, and in 1898 there was a train 
robbery on the Colorado & Southern, at Folsom, N. Mex., between Folsom and Ded- 
man, and Reno— W. H. Reno, that is now with the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., at 
that time was chief special agent of the Colorado & Southern. Reno got Ed Farr 



COLOKADO STEIKE INVESTIGATION. 23 

and myself and others to trail those train robbers on account of our familiarity with 
the country. Ed Farr was in charge of one posse and I was with another. The 
posse that Ed was with encountered the train robbers and Ed was killed along with 
three others. Then Jeff was appointed to fill his brother's place. 

Mr. Austin. He has carried that county as sheriff by a large majority? 

The Witness. Yes; he has. 

Mr. Austin. Why would it be necessary for him to compromise with a man in 
jail in order to get the votes? Did he really need those votes. 

The Witness. There is in that county possibly, previous to last year, about 700 
Democratic votes. There are Mexicans there that he has never been able to turn; 
that is why he would get hold of one of these Mexicans — these Mexican people, the 
families all stay one with the other, and if he takes the leader of one of these fac- 
tions and gets him in, then he can bring the balance to come in and vote with him 
for relief of this other one that he has got hold of. 

Mr. Austin. He really didn't need votes in order to carry the county? 

The Witness. He didn't need their votes. It had always been his object and 
his aim to carry the county as high as possible. He has made a brag of his 2.200 
majority, and the Republican Party — the gang has always figured that they could 
count on 2.200 majority from Huerfano County that Jeff would bring in. 

Mr. Costigan. He has taken some pride, then, in his connection with the State 
machine, as well as 

The Witness (interrupting). He takes a great deal of pride, as any politician here 
in Denver will tell you. 

Mr. Austin. Were those Democratic Texas methods that he brought into this 
State? 

The Witness. I don't krfow, sir. I think they were Republican methods that he 
imbibed after he got into this thing. 

Chairman Foster. He was not an officeholder in Texas? 

The Witness. No, sir; he was not. 

Mr. Austin. In order to get this political rascality, he joined the Republican 
Party; that is your opinion? 

The Witness. That is what he done. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Mr. McQuarrie, is there any difference between the Republican machine in 
Huerfano County and the Democratic machine in Las Animas County from the stand- 
point of the general public? — A. The Democratic machine in Las Animas County? 

Q. Las Animas County. — A. The Democratic machine as it used to be, there is no 
machine in Las Animas County — no Democratic machine; as it used to be, it was 
about as rank as the Republican machine in Huerfano. 

Q. In other words, it is your opinion, is it not, that you have a nonpartisan or 
bipartisan control of governmental agencies by "big business" in each of these coun- 
ties, is it not? — A. There always has been. 

Q. Are there any political machines — similar political machines in the State? — A. 
I believe they have got one up here in Denver, or did have. 

Q. What is the politics of that machine? — A. Well, it has been Democratic. 

Q. Are you familiar with the methods by which coroner's and other juries have been 
selected in Huerfano County? — A. Yes; I am. 

Q. Were you surprised the other day to hear the testimony in the Ball case to find 
that a number of deputy sheriffs were jurors? — A. No, sir; I was not. 

Q. Has that been a characteristic circumstance in Huerfano County or otherwise? — 
A. I have never known of so many deputy sheriffs to be on a jury at once. 

Q. But you have known of other deputy sheriffs? — A. Speaking of the methods of 
drawing coroner's juries, I was always instructed, when being called to a mine to 
investigate an accident, to take the coroner, proceed to the mine, go to the superin- 
tendent and find out who he wanted on the jury-. That is the method that is employed 
in selecting a jury at any of the mines in Huerfano County. 

By Mr. Austin: 

Q. I thought you told us that you would not do any of that kind of work — that Jeff 
never could get you to do it? — A. I mean these illegal arrests. But I selected the 
coroner's juries always, and got them from the superintendent, who would have the 
men, as a rule, lined up there. 

Q. Was that fair? — A. Well, no; I would rather have selected 

Q. What did you do it for? — A. Instructions from the boss. 

Q. I thought you told us he never could get you to do anything of that kind? — A. I 
mean these illegal arrests. 



24 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION". 

Q. I thought you were talking about coroner's juries. — A. No. 

Q. That was not a square deal, was it? — A. I never considered it so. 

Q. What did you do it for? — A. Well, it was right from the boss, and the methods 
that had been pursued. 

Q. Some of these crooked things you would do and some you would not do? — A. 
That is the only thing that I did do that was anywheres wrong — that I can figure out 
as wrong. 

By Mr. Evans: 

Q. I find in the coroner's records in Trinidad 232 violent deaths between the 1st day 
of January, 1910, and the 1st day of March, 1913. Of these cases, recorded by the 
coroner, I found that the names of the jurors were given in 30 cases out of the 232; I 
found that a man by the name of J. C. Baldwin was foreman of the jury — the coroner' s 
jury — in 24 of the 30 cases on which apparently a coroner's inquest was held. Will 
you tell me who J. C. Baldwin is? — A. J. C. Balwin has lived in Trinidad — I have 
lived there over 36 years — 36 years ago — and Baldwin has been there about 23. He is 
a gambler and a bartender. 

Q. What political position, if any, does he hold? — A. For the last five or six years he 
has acted as secretary for the Republican county central committee. He is a kind of 
pensioner — he draws a pension, and in addition to that he is Dan Taylor's right-hand 
man in the first ward and foreman of the coroner's juries. 

Q. The Secretary of the Republican central committee? — A. Yes. W. W. Jones 
another one. 

Q. He acted on practically all of these juries as I remember it. — A. There is another 
man by the name of Evans who is on a great many of the coroner's juries? 

Q. Yes; I didn't look him up when I went down there — that is as far as I wanted to 
go- 

By Chairman Foster: 

Q. Do you say that these deputy sheriffs that were appointed were all residents 
of the State of Colorado? — A. In this last trouble? 

Q. Well, any of the trouble, now or in past years? — A. In this last trouble there was 
24 deputy sheriffs brought up from Texas, all residents of another State but Colorado, 
and appointed deputy sheriffs the next morning after they arrived in Las Animas 
County. Later — two days after — there were 42 brought in in one bunch. These men 
were gotten by a fellow who by the name of Webster; he used to be on the extra list 
as a ranger at El Paso, a man that was born and raised here in Denver, and whom I knew 
very well. 

Q. When were they brought into the State?— A. September. 

Q. Who brought them? — A. A man by the name of Webster. 

Q. Who was Webster?— A. A. C. A. Webster, from El Paso, Tex; 

Q. At whose suggestion or direction — some one in Colorado? — A. They went into the 
employ of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., the Victor- American Fuel Co., and the Rocky 
Mounty Fuel Co. at different camps — they were placed at different camps. 

Q. They were distributed to the camps? — A. Yes. 

Q. And they were not residents of the State of Colorado? — A. They were not resi- 
dents. Again, I know a man by the name of Harper that Mr. Massingale just testified 
here to-night was in the militia. He is a ranch owner and lives at Roy, N. Mex.; his 
family lives there and he is a ranchman there. This man Arthur Swartzel and Pete 
Swartzel, and Joe Kinsey, none of those men are residents of the State of Colorado. 
They are all residents of New Mexico. 

Q. Did they come into the State Armed? — A. No, sir, they were not armed — now 
I can not answer that — they may have had six-shooters on for all I know; but in the 
case of these 24 they were armed somewhere up in town and brought down to the Colo- 
rado & Southern train No. 9 at 1.30 in the afternoon by Sheriff Grisham. He asked 
me if I was going out on that train, and I told him I was. He asked me if I would take 
this bunch and deliver them at Franklin — that is a sort of a section house on this side 
of Ludlow. He said he could not go out with them, and being as I was going he asked 
if I would do that. He asked if I could arrange to have the train stop and I said I 
could, and I seen the conductor and engineer and arranged to have them stop so they 
could unload their baggage and get off at the section house. I talked with four of 
them and they showed me" their deputy sheriff's commissions, so I knew that they were 
appointed deputy sheriffs that morning after they got into Trinidad. 

Q. Did you ever have any experience with the post office at Walsenburg or any of 
those mining camps, in reference to the interference with the mails — the post-office 
business in any way A. No, sir; I never did. 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 25 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Are you familiar with the complaint that was filed with Congress a year or two 
ago on that subject? — A. I have heard — filed with Congress a year or two ago? 

Q. I think that some investigating committee made inquiries. — A. No, sir; I am 
not familiar with those complaints at all. 

Q. You have heard many complaints as to lost mail? — A. Oh, yes; I have heard 
many complaints as to loss mail, but I am not familiar with the investigation that was 
'carried on. 

Q. All you know on that subject is hearsay? — A. That's all. 

Q. Are you positive as to whether Mr. Lawson was unconstitutionally arrested and 
detained, as you said, in 1906 or 1907 — do you know what year that happened in? 

Mr. Herrington. I don't think we can permit a man like this to swear to consti- 
tutional law. We had a mine clerk swear to the republican form of government in 
Trinidad. If we could settle constitutional questions by the swearing of mine clerks, 
it would be easy. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. I will leave the word "constitutional " out if it is embarrassing to Mr. Herrington. 
The fact having been stated, we will let that stand. Do you know whether that inci- 
dent occurred in 1906 or 1907? — A. To the best of my recollection it was in September, 
1906— it may have been 1907. 

Q. Do you remember what Mr. Lawson's alleged offense was? — A. Carrying con- 
cealed weapons was the charge. 

Q. Do you know that the real reason for his arrest was— was that stated in a conver- 
sation with Sheriff Farr? — A. Well, he was an organizer. 

Q. For what? — A. The United Mine Workers of America, and he had been trailed 
around and watched. You see, Reno always sends out a description 

Mr. Austin. Just state who Reno is so the record will show. — A. W. H. Reno, the 
chief detective or special agent for the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., used to furnish a 
description of all organizers that came into the district or was suspected of being an 
organizer, and in that way Sheriff Farr would always have his men look out for them 
and run them out of the county and make things disagreeable for them the moment 
they would spot them. 

Q. Was that the fact in regard to Mr. Lawson? — A. That was the fact in regard to 
Mr. Lawson. 

Q. He was followed for a long time? — A. He and any other organizer that ever came 
into the district. Gamier was followed— he was there about the time that Lawson 
was — he was followed also. 

Q. Did the} succeed in running Lawson out of these camps by these methods? — A. 
No; they didn't succeed in running him out — he came back again. 

Q. Did the United Mine Workers of America or similar organization of labor have 
man} friends at that time in Huerfano County? — A. Well, I don't know what their 
number was. I don't know how many there were. I know that they were in there 
organizing; it was after the 1904 strike, and I know there was a great many that I knew 
as union men, and there probably were a great many that I did not know that were 
union men. 

Q. Would whatever friendship existed manifest itself publicly? — A. No, sir; it 
would not. 

Q. Why not? — A. Well, if a man was known to be a union man, he could not get a 
job. 

Q. is there any other fact relating to the political conditions or social or industrial 
conditions as you knew them in Huerfano County that you would care to draw to the 
attention of the committee? — -A. I don't think there is anything but what has been 
brought up. 

By Mr. Herrington: 

Q. You said that Jeff Farr dominated the politics of the city of Walsenburg? — 
A. Yes; he does, Mr. Herrington. 

Q. Are there any of the camps of the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. and the Victor- 
American Fuel Co. or any other camps within the city limits of Walsenburg? — A. Any 
of the camps within the city limits of Walsenburg? 

Q. Yes. — A. No; there is not any of the camps within the city limits of Walsenburg. 

Q. There are very few voters who live in Walsenburg that work in any of the 
camps? — A. There is quite a lot live in Walsenburg that work at the mines. There is 
the McNally, Robinson, Walsen, and Cameron mines — those fellows live in Walsen- 
burg, and the Toltec mine, they live in Walsenburg. That brings up another thing. 
In 1904 — the election of 1904, the Shumway mine had just been opened, and there 



26 COLORADO STEIKE INVESTIGATION. 

was a man by the name of Wilds, the superintendent there, from the northern field,, 
and Wilds was a Democrat and all his friends were Democrats. Well, Farr had the 
precinct lines of that precinct — it was precinct No. 3 — Maitland — they were voting in 
precinct No. 3. He had the precinct lines of that precinct changed so that it included 
the Shumway mine and placed them where they had to go 26 miles to vote, 26 miles 
away from their mine. He also had the precinct lines changed in Toltec, making the 
mine 

Mr. Herrington. That has nothing to do with it. 

Chairman Foster. Let him tell it. 

A. (Continued.) In 1903 Fruth & Ambrey, operating the Toltec mine, in that mine 
had a bunch of Democrats — a bunch of dynamiters, as Jeff called them — and the 
Toltec mine — the precinct was changed to make that in precinct 16 of the city of 
Walsenburg, so they would have 2J miles to come. 

Mr. Herrington. Have you said all you wanted to say now? 

The Witness. No; I could talk all night, Fred. 

Q. Go ahead. — A. I don't care to talk if you don't care to hear any more. 

Q. I don't want to ask you any more questions, if the committee can not stop you — 
have you said all you care to now? — A. If you are satisfied, I am, Fred. 

Q. I am. I won't ask you any more questions. 

By Mr. Costigan: 

Q. Some one has suggested that Mr. Farr has been personally interested largely in 
the saloons of Walsenburg; do you know anything about that fact? — A. Farr is a part- 
ner in the Spanish Peaks Mercantile Co., which is a wholesale liquor company. Farr, 
Gardner, W. H. Reno, and Unfug, and in that way, being sheriff of the county and 
controlling the board of county commissioners, he is interested in the saloons. He is 
a partner with Frank Morrow in the saloons at Rouse and at Midway. These are 
retail establishments. 

Q. Frank Morrow, who brought the Italian witness, or one of them into the room 
the other night? — A. Yes. 

By Mr. Gove: 

Q. The witness denied that? 

Mr. Costigan. I thought the Italian woman said that he brought her from the room. 

Mr. Sutherland. My understanding was that he brought the first witness into the 
room. I think it was Mr. Madison whom the Italian woman testified to. 

Q. Mr. Morrow was there the other night and acted as interpreter for a while, didn't 
he, until the committee relieved him? — A. I was not in the court room. 

Q. Do you know of any other affiliations in a business way that Mr. Farr has in 
Huerfano County, in a general way, Mr. McQuarrie? — A. Well, he is interested in the 
Walsenburg Investment Co. 

Q. What is that, a real estate company? — A. A real estate concern. 

Q. Dealing in loans? — A. Dealing in loans — real estate, buildings, and so forth. 
There was some buildings that they rented for immoral purposes. That is the only 
other connection that I know of. 



We also print a speech of Judge J. C. Northcutt, of Trinidad, Colo., 
delivered at Lamar, Colo., in the campaign of 1912. Mr. Northcutt 
is an ex-judge of the district in which Trinidad is situated, his reputa- 
tion as a lawyer is one of the best in the State, a man of character, 
and no doubt spoke what he believed to be the truth as to the con- 
ditions existing at that time. 

SPEECH MADE BY HON. JESSE G. NORTHCUTT, AT LAMAR, COL., OCTOBER 10, 1912. 

Ladies and gentlemen, please accept my expression of gratitude for your kindly 
reception. I am always delighted to get down to Lamar, the logical capital and 
metropolis of this man-made portion of the once great American desert. Lamar and 
Prowers Counties lave for a quarter of a century been in the foreground of everything 
that has savored of improvement, advancement, and progress. It has been your 
custom, and you are known tl rough out the State as reaching out and drawing unto 
yourselves all that you could get of that which is good, and by your selection and by 
the character of your progress and advancement you have been heralded throughout 
the State as a center of intelligence and industry, and knowing these elements of 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 27 

character to be planted liere, and knowing these elements of character to be under 
intense cultivation here, we naturally expect on visiting your pleasant little metropolis 
to find here a large number of that element representing the Progressive Party. 

I do not know what to talk to you about. There is nothing you want from me, 
there is nothing I want from you except to see you use good judgment in the further- 
ance of that which I believe' to be to the interest of you and of the whole State of 
Colorado and the United States in selecting the party to whom you should give your 
vote this fall, but those who have preceded me and those who are to follow want to 
enter into your employment, they want to become your agents, they want to take 
positions under you and discharge certain duties which have to be discharged through 
agents. This being the case, it is right and proper that they should want to get 
acquainted with you, and if they are honest, that they should be willing to let you get 
acquainted with them. 

.1 admire the attitude and the address of the first speaker [Mrs. Utter]. She told 
you frankly, plainly, and in few words what she would do if elected to the office to 
which she has been nominated, and the experience which she has had here as a pio- 
neer and the courage which it required. The effort and the courage which it required 
to teach a school on these prairies in pioneer days is all the guaranty that you or any 
people want as to the fitness of that person to the office which she seeks to occupy, 
and I hope and trust you will elect her. It is nice to talk of those days and sounds 
cheery, and many of you who have come here since then think you would like to go 
through them. There is something inviting about the pioneer life, but when those 
who have passed through it look back upon the peril which they endured, the hard- 
ships which they endured, and the days when in doubt as to what the future was 
going to bring, they find they have paid dearly for the freedom which they enjoy. 

"We are this fall in one of those quadrennial maelstroms which the form of govern- 
ment which we enjoy, and which we believe to be the best in the world, brings to us 
periodically. Never have I known or read of a time in which there has been such a dis- 
counting of parties and party names as there is to-day, unless perhaps it was in 1860. 
The people seem to have wakened up to the fact, as intimated to you by one of the 
speakers here this evening, that the party name has been held up to us as an idol which we 
have blindly followed to our detriment, and the people of this United States have 
thrown aside, and have determined to act independently upon their own judgment and 
to better conditions in this country. It is no longer a question of parties, it is not so 
solely a question of measures either; it is a question of honesty of purpose, energetically 
carried out and pursued. It has become a question with which the people realize 
now for the first time that they are confronted. Shall the people of this United States 
rule, or shall we give our franchises into the vest pockets of a few people who have 
become notoriously known as 'bosses?' Many of us for many years have realized 
that things were not right in Colorado. I think there are very few of us who realized 
that conditions in Colorado were so symbolic of conditions all over this country. You 
who have been attending conventions for the last 10 years in Colorado know very well r 
if you are honest with yourselves and your neighbors, that you can not put your finger 
on a single item of convention legislation in the way of a platform or a nomination 
in which you were instrumental. If you will be honest with yourselves in your reflec- 
tions you will remember and admit that when you went to Denver or to Colorado 
Springs to a convention you hadn't the least thought of getting upon the floor and 
telling what your people at home wanted, and you know you have learned that it is 
absolutely futile for you to try to ascertain in your home convention what your neigh- 
bors want and go there and undertake to further their interests. What have you done? 
You have gone to Denver and gotten as near the inner circle at the Brown Palace 
Hotel as you could to find out what the 'powers' had mapped out for you to do, 
and if you had too much manhood to vote, you sat there silently and came home 
ashamed to meet your constituents, lest they should ask you what you had done and 
how you did it. These are facts which every man who has been going to conventions 
knows to be true. I don't know just exactly how hard the roller has run down here. 
I know it has been here, because I have seen its tracks. I know that some of your 
supposedly leading politicians have made their solemn pledges within the last six 
months that they would do certain things; said that no power on earth could withhold 
them from it, but when the time came they said they had to play politics and did 
exactly the opposite from what they said they would do. I think that operation is 
comparatively light down here in this valley, because, if you will permit me to suggest, 
farming communities are not run quite so much like a drove of sheep as the mining 
communities and communities in the large cities. The farmer will refuse, because 
he feels independent and feels he is not to be driven as a sheep, and you people are 
fortunate in being located in a farming community, where you can get indorsement 



28 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

for that which is good, whether some man up in Denver says you may have it or not. 
This has been the condition so far as the Republican Party is concerned, and I am hot 
going to say so much about the other party because I do not know much about it. 
About all that I have had to clo with it is to fight it, but recently I have concluded 
it is not so awful bad because it is seeking many of the same things we are seeking and 
they will help us to get them, and so long as they will do that I am not going to be 
very bad to them. But, so far as our party is concerned, there at a convention the 
delegates do not even claim the right to nominate a single man on the ticket. Let 
me tell you how they do it, because as a matter of fact you are really affected and you 
are interested in it, and I will endeavor to tell you why. Up there a few men get 
together in a room some days before the convention. They have already fixed up 
whom the delegates to the convention shall be. They have probably given the 
local superintendent of the mines the number of delegates to which that community 
will be entitled. They do not tell him whom to bring. He knows he is to select a 
certain number of delegates who are to come in and follow the dictation of a single 
man whose name is given to them before they leave. 

"He goes around and picks out Jim Archuleta and some others, and says to them, 
*I want you to go down to a convention to-morrow, down to Trinidad to a convention, 
and you see Mr. So-and-so and do as he tells you.' Knowing that these delegates 
will come in and do as they are told, a meeting of four or five leaders is held and they 
proceed to make the slate. 'We will take for county clerk So-and-so; he is a good 
man for the purpose.' Some other man says, 'But still I think probably sometime 
within the last 8 or 10 months he had some trouble with some pit boss,' and there 
is just a suspicion if the company likes him. He isn't right with the company and 
they don't want him; he goes off the slate. And so it is from bottom to top the 
candidates are selected, not with a view to their fitness, not with a view to their 
ability to discharge their duty, not with a view to their integrity, but 'are they 
satisfactory to the company?' If they are, that settles it. Now, you say, where 
does that affect you? I will tell you how it affects you. You are tied up with those 
counties down there in a good many matters. You are tied with them in a judicial 
district; you were tied with them, and I believe you are yet, in a senatorial district, 
were in a representative district. And they have a majority of your conventions, 
and when they come to select the delegates they select them in the same way. They 
send them in there to nominate, regardless of your wishes, for the office of district judge 
or State senator the man whom the companies want, and if you don't like it you will 
have to take it. Now. if you want to further that condition of affairs, you can vote 
with the ticket which they select. Now, that is all I am going to say about that 
matter, excepting to say that there is just that condition prevailing in so many of the 
large population centers throughout the United States, and it is just that practice 
carried to an extreme degree which has destroyed the efficacy of the Republican 
Party. The Republican Party was brought into existence for a noble purpose and it 
has nobly discharged it. It fought long and hard to accomplish its purpose, and 
then devoted Itself through the machinery of the Government to compensating in a 
degree those who had stood for the right it accomplished, the purpose of freedom. 
It was very properly started out upon the theory of protecting the industries of the 
United States against competition of other countries, but when it had accomplished its 
purpose its virility was gone, and the special interests of this country, seeing that 
it was a name of influence, that it was a name which conjured success, that it was an 
organization through which things could be accomplished, reached out and grasped 
it for the advancement of their own special purposes, for the aggrandizement of their 
own personality, and the adding to their already quite sufficient fortunes; and if 
they are added to. it must come from somebody, and it comes from those who are 
the least able to protect themselves. If they have fastened onto the name, let them 
have it, and let the people organize and construct their edifice from the very same 
material which made the Republican Party so strong and powerful in its youthful 
days, namely, construct it from the young American manhood and womanhood, and 
put it upon the foundation that its predecessor was placed upon — virtue, justice, 
energy, and honesty — and when that is done this country will come back to the point 
of regarding manhood better and more sacred than property. 

"What we want in this country is justice. "What we want in office is a man or men 
who will be just to their fellow men; not only just and honest, but who will be energetic 
in prosecuting the right. It isn't enough to say that a man is honest, that he means 
right, or even add to it that he knows right, if you stop there, but he must be a man 
who has the courage to do right in the face of criticism and opposition. 

"Now, what we want is to take the reins of government out of the hands of the fellow 
who sits behind the scene. If any man is going to set himself up as the dictator of 
our candidates and dictator of our delegates to conventions and the dictator of our 



COLOEADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 2& 

platform which we shall adopt, let him come out in the open and say, 'I did it,' and 
not get a few tools to do the work and relieve himself of the responsibility. I believe 
we are going back in a great many ways to the things of the past which were good. 
They used to have the little town meeting, where the people gathered together and 
talked over the things they wanted, and they instructed the man whom they sent as 
delegate to work for what they wanted, and men frequently went into the highest 
legislative halls of the Nation and gave as their reason for advocating a particular 
measure that the constituents of their district wanted that measure. Do you hear 
much of that now? No; they get their information up there either from an agent or 
some of them can go to headquarters and get it themselves. I think it was about 1840 
that the first presidential nomination was ever held. Previous to that time the legis- 
latures all over the country, having discussed the matter previous to the time for nom- 
inating a President and Vice President, would pass resolutions and the representa- 
tives from the different States would know what they wanted, and so on and so on; 
and then when the representatives from these various States would get together and 
cast their votes the high man would be nominated. Later on the convention was 
organized, but it became so highly organized that it lost its efficacy as a representative 
of the people, and the interests got control of it, so that they didn't hesitate to do the 
things which they have done, and little by little the interests have deprived the 
people of their rights, until they finally stole outright enough delegates to nominate a 
man for President the people of the United States don't want. 

"I do not believe I am going to touch on any of these national questions, however. 
I often think that people talk about these in order to get your mind away from things 
nearer home that they don't want you to think about. It is all right for the Congress- 
man, but the man who stays at home should let them alone, and I often think when 
they talk about them it is to get votes and to take your mind off things nearer home. 

"There is one matter nearer to my heart and nearer to your hearts about which I 
wish to talk to you a few moments — that is, one of your candidates. I am not going 
to say anything to you about your I epresentative, because you know him much 
better than I, and all of these candidates are known to you in their daily walks of 
life, and you have every reason to feel proud of them, but I wish to talk to you about 
your judicial ticket. There is no officer who has in his hands and under his absolute 
control rights so sacred and rights which may effect your future so much, both your 
personal and property rights, as does the district judge of your district. In many 
cases he may for weal or woe change your whole future and the future of your children. 
I have alwa} r s felt if there was any officer who had cause to kneel before the Omnipo- 
tent throne and plead for guidance it is the judge of the district court. Fortunately 
for you people here, you have on your ticket for that office, and he is so fortunate as 
to have the indorsement of the opposition ticket also, a man who is known by many 
of you. You knew him as a child, when, with every ounce of his physical strength 
he worked in your midst at manual labor, on your ditches, and in your fields for his 
daily bread. The same energy, the same determination of purpose and the same 
self-reliance that sustained him then took him through his college course and led him 
to the bar, and with the same energy he became a student, and with the same diligence 
and courage he has served you for a period of eight years as your prosecutor. I recall 
that when he made his first race many people of your little town spoke to me about 
his then supposedly premature years, and you wondered if he would be capable of 
meeting the onerous duties which would devolve upon him, and I think you will 
recall, as many of you who are present who then talked to me about it, that I was 
willing to stand sponsor for his fidelity of purpose, and I say to you now that I am still 
willing to stake my reputation upon his honesty, his fidelity, his energy, and his 
courage to do that which he believes to be right, and if you elect him as your district 
judge he will be found not gadding about the streets or standing upon the corners 
trying to get votes; he will not be found going to the public places and being what- 
ever the people in that particular place are; he will not be found changing his views 
to suit the crowd he is with, but he will be found with his briefs; he will be found 
over the record of facts that have been introduced before him; he will be found 
while the lawyers and the parties in the case are asleep, delving into the library for 
guidance to do what is right in the discharge of the duties that are cast upon him. 

"I could say many other things about the character of this man. His brother 
doesn't know him any better than I. He has been with me for a period of 13 years, 
as closely associated as it is possible for two men to be associated. There are many 
things I could relate which delicacy forbids in his presence, because men of any 
manhood are embarrassed by many things which are pleasant to hear behind their 
backs, if related to their faces, so I will forego, because you people know him. 

"As to his adversary, I shall say nothing. I hope you know him, too. Your 
lawyers know just how diligently he pursues his work. Those who have traveled- 



30 COLORADO STEIKE INVESTIGATION. 

through the district know just how consistent he is in the social and political views 
which he entertains. You have had some litigation down here in matters which 
are of considerable local interest. They are not issues in this campaign, and I do 
not refer to them for the purpose of taking a position upon them. I have my own 
ideas and want you to do the same, but I merely refer to the wet and dry proposition, 
I think you call it. I have been advised that the adverse candidate down here is 
notoriously a dry proposition in his views as to the enforcement of the law. It is 
right that the law on all questions should be enforced, but you don't feel much con- 
fidence in the man who declares himself a dry advocate here and in secret conference 
promises the saloon men in the city of Trinidad and Huerfano County that he will 
not permit prosecutions of the violations of the law in which they are engaged. I 
call attention to that not for the purpose of expressing my opinion upon that ques- 
tion nor of asking anybody else to. You all have your right to your opinions upon 
it. Having formed your opinion, do what your conscience dictates to you to be 
right. But what I do object to in you or anybody else is being dry here and wet in 
Trinidad. 

"I am going to say just a word to you about another political candidate. He is 
here present to-night. I do not know whether he feels justified or called upon, or, 
rather, permitted or entitled, to talk to you or not. He happens to be a 'mossback' 
Democrat, a Missouri Democrat. You know, they don't change very often, and 
yet we know there are some awfully good men among them, and he is one of them, 
and his party has seen fit to give him the nomination for district attorney. He has 
been so clean in his record that the Progressives thought him good enough for them, 
and they have indorsed him, and Mr. Hendrick stands on the two tickets to-day. 
He has lived in your State about 25 years. He has been in the practice of law about 
25 years. I presume that if there is a criminal case or a class of criminal cases that he 
hasn't tried, it is because that never arose in this district. He has probably enjoyed 
a practice as extensive as any man in the southern part of Colorado; and let me tell 
you something which you probably don't know: He is the one man in the practice of 
law in the third judicial district who has had the courage when some unfortunate 
widow or brother has come to him whose only support has had his life snapped out 
on the railroad — he is the one man who has had the courage to say, 'You have got a 
case, and we will go into it for you, and we will recover for you if we have to fight 
it to the court of the last resort in the land.' Most of the lawyers are afraid to do 
that, because they are afraid the company will blacklist them and be against them 
politically and every other way. If you elect John Hendrick as your district attorney 
you will have a man who will fight a 85,000,000 corporation just as quickly as he will 
fight a hobo on the street. I would be glad if he would talk to you a little bit to-night, 
if he sees fit to do so. 

"Thank you." 

"State of Colorado, County of Prowers, ss: 

"I Dixie D. Gould, hereby certify that on October 10, 1912, I took in shorthand 
a speech made by Jesse G. Northcutt in the opera house at Lamar, Colo., and that 
the foregoing is a true and correct transcript of the notes taken by me, correctly report- 
ing said speech. 

"Dixie D. Gould. 

"The above and foregoing certificate and statement was signed and sworn to before 
me this 23d day of February, A. D. 1914. 

[seal.] "James B. Traxler, 

"Notary Public. 
"My commission expires October 17, 1915." 

CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS, SOCIAL, INDUSTRIAL, AND POLITICAL JUSTICE. 

The manner of selecting juries in Las Animas and Huerfano Counties 
appears to be against the provisions of the law. The evidence of 
T. M. Hudson, clerk of the court, shows that out of 12 jurors in the 
case of Miller, deputy sheriff, who was tried for assaulting a man by the 
name of Ball, breaking his jaw, resulting in his acquittal, at least 7 of 
them were deputy sheriffs. It seems in the selection of jurors to 
serve in the regular panel that there were duplications each time, so 
that there were among the number of jurors those who were incom- 
petent under the law; also some of them were nonresidents and deputy 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 31 

sheriffs of other counties. In the foregoing speech, delivered by Judge 
North cutt during the campaign of 1912, he speaks highly of the then 
candidate and now judge, A. W. McHenry, as being the one man 
who was in the practice of law in that judicial district who had 
the courage to accept a case against a railroad. Dr. Ben Boshoar 
(p. 1317), a man born and raised in southern Colorado, of good charac- 
ter and high standing in the community, and Mr. W. A. Garner (p. 
1297), a resident of the community, also testified as to conditions 
existing in that part of the State, and Postmaster Vigil, of Trinidad, 
testified (p. 1335) as to the conditions existing in Las Animas County, 
together with other witnesses who testified as to conditions existing 
In both Las Animas and Huerfano Counties. This testimony leaves 
little doubt as to the deplorable conditions existing there as to the 
denial of social, industrial, and political justice. No thinking person 
can read the testimony taken by your committee and of other inves- 
tigating commissions of the industrial disturbances in southern 
Colorado without being convinced that fundamentally and under- 
lying all these disturbances there must be some evil which right 
thinking and acting people would be able to correct. 

If the trouble be due to an unreasonable attitude of the coal 
companies, then the officers should give these powerful organizations 
to understand that protection will only be afforded them for carry- 
ing on their business in a legitimate way and with due regard to the 
rights of their employees and the public; or if the miners are attempt- 
ing to interfere with the legitimate work of the operators and are 
violating the law, they should equally be required to respect the 
proper rights of their employers and of the public. Both should 
recognize that each and the public generally has rights under the law 
which must be respected. 

The disturbances in these coal fields of Colorado are nation wide in 
their importance. In these disturbed areas we find a conflict between 
capital and labor which is not confined to those in the State of 
Colorado, but on both sides is nation wide in its effect. We find 
that contributions of money are made by organized labor from 
different parts of the country, which is its contribution to labor's right 
to organize and to bargain collectively. We find the shipment of men 
from other States to take the place of strikers, the importation of 
detectives and others who by nature and training enjoy being in these 
struggles and encounters; the shipment from other States of guns 
and ammunition. We find citizens of other and far distant States 
who are financially and otherwise interested in this struggle; absentee 
owners — among whom is young Mr. Rockefeller, who, when examined 
in Washington, disclaimed any responsibility for conditions in 
Colorado, which have not only disturbed that State but have dis- 
turbed the Nation and caused such loss of life and destruction of 
property. Absentee owners or directors by their absence from the 
scene of such disturbances can not escape their moral responsibility 
for conditions in and about the properties in which they are interested. 

It is certainly the duty of organized government to prevent, if 
possible, such troubles; and it is the only power competent to deal 
with this situation. Men on either side should be given to under- 
stand that the law is supreme. The rights of society should be and 
are supreme in all matters of this kind, and capital and labor should 
both understand that each must subordinate its special interest to 



32 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION". 

the common welfare. If the laws passed fail to accord equal rights 
to each, and those whose duty it is to administer the law impartially 
and fairly should fail to do so, organized government must fail; and 
disorder, chaos, destruction of property, and bloodshed must in- 
evitably result. Colorado has been unable alone to settle its prob- 
lems, and it is unfortunate for the State that such is the case. It has 
been necessary to call on the Federal Government to assist, and for seven 
months Federal troops have been in the State at an expense of $1,500 
per day. It should be the duty of the Government to assist any 
State in settling a dispute that is nation wide in its scope; and if any 
Federal law can be enacted that will help, not only Colorado but any 
other States that may be similarly situated, it is the duty of Congress 
to speedily put upon the statute books the necessary laws so that 
such industrial disturbances may forever cease. 

PEONAGE, POSTAL CONDITIONS, COMBINATIONS. 

We did not find it clearly proven that a condition of peonage existed 
in the coal fields of Colorado, but we found that during the strike men 
were brought in from other States by the car and train load and were 
delivered to the mining camps under guard of the militia, many of 
them being foreigners and unacquainted with the work of mining coal. 
The entrances to many of the camps were so guarded that none was 
permitted to enter or leave without a pass properly signed by some one 
m authority. The evidence showed that some of them escaped from 
the camp, going over the hills to Trinidad or elsewhere; and two men 
came before the committee one day and testified they had just 
escaped the day before. We do not believe it was proven that the 
operators forcibly kept men in camp until their debts were paid, but 
that they rather endeavored to hold in camp those who were already 
in the camp before the strike and to prevent those who had been 
taken in as strike breakers from going outside. Guards and militia 
did everything they could -to induce men to remain inside the 
camp, the operators claiming it was for the protection of the men; 
but it was claimed by the miners that it was done to keep these men 
in the camp, where they might be used for the purpose of mining coal 
and thus help break the strike. The company had been at consider- 
able expense in bringing in these men from other States, and to permit 
them to leave would only necessitate bringing in others to take their 
places; and they were compelled to have sufficient men to operate 
the mines while the strike was in existence in order to show those 
who were on strike that the company was able to fill all their orders 
and had all the men needed for the purpose of operating the mines. 

In many of these mining camps the post offices were located in the 
company's store. Some of the towns being on private property and 
no public roads leading into the towns, the company exercised the 
right, whether lawfully or unlawfully, to put guards at the entrances 
of these towns and permit no one during the strike to enter or leave 
without a pass properly signed, so that if anyone desired to receive 
mail at the post office he must first secure a pass in order to get past 
the guards and go to the post office. 

John Wennberg testified that he had gone to the post office at 
Hastings to get his mail and was stopped at the gate, and after stating 
he desired to go to the post office he was then told he might enter; but 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 33 

instead of going the road usually traveled to the post office, and as 
anyone would naturally go, he was told he must go across a deep 
arroyo or ditch, as it is commonly called in our country, and refusing 
to cross through the ditch on the way to the post office he went back 
to the Ludlow tent colony, and the next day he stated that he re- 
quested the mail driver to bring this mail. There were other instances 
in which people were not permitted to enter the post office to receive 
their mail. The postmaster in these offices usually acted also as the- 
manager for the company store and wrote the company's drafts as- 
well as postal money orders, and charged the same for each, and the 
evidence showed that they were in the habit of writing checks instead' 
of postal money orders, thereby giving the profit to the mining com- 
pany which rightly belonged to the Government. Another instance 
in which they had done this for the company against the Govern- 
ment was in the case of a shoemaker by name of Emilio Valentini, as 
the following testimony will show: 

Emelio Valentini, a witness called before the investigating committee, testified 
as follows: 

Examination by Mr. Brewster: 

Q. What is your name? — A. Emelio Valentini. 

Q. Where do you live, Mr. Valentini? — A. In Segundo. 

Q. In Colorado? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. What is your business there? — A. Shoe business. 

Q. Shoe business? — A. Shoemaker. 

Q. Do you know where the post office is there? — A. Well, yes. 

Q. Did you ever go to the post office to buy post-office money orders? — A. Well, I 
go to the post office, and ask for post-office money order. 

Q. And when you have asked for a post-office money order have you been given 
that, for example [handing paper to witness]? — A. Yes. 

(Said paper was marked for identification "Miners' Exhibit No. 64.") 

Mr. Brewster. I offer in evidence miners' Exhibit No. 64, which is receipt dated 
"Segundo, September 10, 1913," from the supply company. The name of the com- 
pany is Colorado Supply Co. Manager store No. 29. 

Q. Did you get money on these? — A. Oh, yes; I got 

Q. Did you get this one, for example, which I will have marked presently [handing: 
paper to witness]? — A. Yes, sir. 

(Said paper was marked for identification "Miners' Exhibit No. 65.") 

Q. Did you receive also those — that one [handing paper to witness]? — A. Yes, sir- 

Q. And that one [handing paper to witness]? — A. Yes. 

Q. The other one, underneath there? — A. Yes; I got some more here [witness pro- 
duces spindle of receipts]. 

Q. Here is another form. Did you receive also that when you went to the post 
office one day? — A. Yes. That receipt is not for Colorado. This is for a different 
State — Missouri. 

(The last two papers handed the witness and identified by him were marked also as 
Exhibit No. 65, and are attached together.) 

Mr. Sutherland. How much is a crown in American money? 

The Interpreter. Seven lire. 

Mr. Brewster. This is a little different form of exhibit, may it please the com- 
mittee. 

Q. This receipt was to be sent where? Where was that to go — the money order? — 
A. Well, to Omaha, I think. 

Mr. Brewster. This was to go to Omaha. It is a slightly different form. It is a 
draft. This is Exhibit No. 66. 

Q. Now, you got — did you get more of this same kind?— A. Well 

Q. Here is another one, for instance. Did you get that when you asked for a money- 
order [handing paper to witness]? — A. Yes. 

(Said paper was marked for identification "Miners' Exhibit No. 67.") 

Mr. Brewster. 67 is similar to Exhibit 66. 

Q. Now, Mr. Valentine, when you got these, how much did you pay for them— dif- 
ferent prices? — A. Well, yes. 

H Doc. 1630, 63-3 3 



^34 COLORADO STEIKE INVESTIGATION. 

Q. How did the prices run that you paid for these— how did they vary?— A. Well, 
I don't remember if he charged me 5 or 10 cents for $10. I don't know about that. 

Q. You don't remember the precise amount that he charged you for a certain amount 
of money, do you?— A. No; I do not remember. 

Q. Did you ever pay more than 10 cents? — A. Well, when I made a large money 
-order, he charged me more than 10 cents. 

Q. Well, how much more?— A. Well, I don't know if it is 15 cents or 20 cents. I 
don't know about it. 

Q. Did he sometimes charge you 25 cents? — A. Well, when I make a large money 
<wder. 

Q. Large money order. Now 

Mr. Byrnes. Ask him what is the highest he ever paid. 

Q. What is the highest amount that you ever paid, if you know? — A. Well, I don't 
Temember, because sometimes I make $200 or $300 money order, and I don't know if 
he charged me 20 cents, 25 cents, or 30 cents. 

Mr. Byrnes. How much a month did you make? 

The Witness. Well, I run the shoe business. I don't know how much I made. I 
run the shoe shop and shoe store. 

Mr. Byrnes. What is the name of the postmaster? 

The Witness. Well, I don't know, because I can't read American. 

Mr. Brewster. He can't read American — you can't read English? 

The Witness. No. 

Mr. Byrnes. How long have you been in this country? 

The Witness. Oh, about part of eight years — about seven years, anyway. 

Q. I will ask you if got this blue receipt when you asked for a money order ?— A. The 
first I have. 

Q. This is the first blue receipt you ever got?— A. Yes, sir. 

{Said receipt was marked for identification "Miners' Exhibit No. 68.") 

Mr. Brewster. February 7, after this committee was coming on its way here. 

Mr. Herrington. Well, now — ■ — 

Chairman Foster. Don't say that. The exhibit speaks for itself. 

Q. Exhibit 68 is shown the witness, and he is asked if this was the first one of this 
kind you ever got? — A. Yes. 

Q. Did you get this at the same place that you got the others? — A. Yes. 

Mr. Brewster. We offer this Exhibit No. 68 in evidence. May it please the 
conftnittee we have on that spindle and in this envelope a large number of these 
exhibits, running from— these orders and drafts, which he got when he asked for 
money orders, running through the years 1912 and 1913. Shall we offer more in 
evidence? I mean, are you satisfied that this is sufficient to decide this matter? 

Mr. Austin. Have you got any other receipts from any other offices? You might 
put them in, if you can prove it, in reference to any other post office. 

Mr. Brewster. We have, I think, put some in evidence of some other offices. 

TVlr. Byrnes. There is no use in putting in so many from one office. 

Mr. Brewster. I am trying to satisfy the committee. 

Mr. Austin. The committee would be satisfied with one, if it isn't contradicted. 

■Chairman Foster. The chairman would like to know if there is anybody that could 
vgive us the name of the postmaster? 

Mr. Brewster. We expect to prove that. 

Mr. Costigan. Doesn't that appear on this last receipt? 

Chairman Foster. It does not. 

Q. When you went to the post office to get these orders, did you go to the post-office 
-window where you buy stamps?— A. Yes. 

Mr. Herrington. That is leading. Ask him where he went. 

Mr. Brewster. He said he went to the post office. 

By Chairman Foster: 

Q. Tell us where you went to buy these papers that they gave you. Where did 
you go?— A. In Segundo. 

Q. I know, but where— what place in Segundo?— A. In the Colorado Supply Store. 
, Q. What part of the store? Who gave you these? What part of the store was he in 
when you talked to him? — A. He give me this in the Colorado Supply Store, in 
Segundo. 

Q. What part of the store? — A. In the post office. 

Q. In the" post office?' — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Was it behind the counter of the store, or behind where the post office is 
located? — A. In the front, this place where you buy the stamp. 

Q. Where you bought the stamp? — A. Yes, sir. 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 35 

Q. And where you got your mail? — A. Yes, sir. 

Q. Did you call for a post-office money order, a United States post-office money 
order when you went in there? — A. I called for a post-office money order. 

By Mr. Byrnes: 
Q. Didn't you know this was not a money order? — A. I didn't know anything about 
it. I showed it. a blue money order, to my friend — this man who write letters for 
me, and he do all my business, writing and everything — he says this is post-office 
money order and the other is receipt, Colorado Supply receipt. 

By Mr. Brewster: 

Q. Now, did you ever get any foreign post-office money order — for foreign coun- 
tries — countries across the water — did you ever try to send money across the water 
anywhere and ask for a money order? 

Mr. Harrington. I ask that this counsel does not lead him — let him tell what 
he did. 

Q. What did you ask for when you got that paper I show you — what did you ask 
for? — A. For to send money in the old country. - I am going to tell you something 
now; about four or five years ago I ask for money order to send to the old country. 
Postmaster tell me I can not make money order for the old country. 

Q. .What did he give you? — A. He didn't give me nothing, because I didn't send 
money there: I go to Weston. 

Q. And did you at Weston get a money order to send money across the water? — - 
A. Yes. 

Q. What did you get there? — A. I got different kind of receipt he tell me this was 
money order. 

Q. When you sent to Segundo post office and got that paper, what did you ask 
for? — A. I just ask to send money for the old country. 

Q. Did you go to the post-office window and ask for that? — A. Yes. 

By Mr. Harrington: 

Q. How long have you lived at Segundo? — A. About seven years — I have been in 
Segundo seven years and I never change my place. 

Q. You live in Old Town?— A. Old Town, yes. 

Q. You are a shoemaker there? — A. Yes. 

Q. What is your nationality? — A. Austrian. 

Q. Tyrolean?— A. Tyrolean; yes, sir. 

Q. Now, this was money that you were sending back to the old country? — A. I 
aend mine father and mine mother money. 

Q. Do you know the postmaster at Segundo? — A. No, I do not, because I can not 
read American. 

Q. Do you know whether they received money there and kept it for persons who 
wanted to leave it with them and then draw it out, or not — do you know that fact — 
did you deposit any money there with the supply company at any time? — A. Well, 
I never deposited money myself, no. 

Q. You never have deposited any? — A. Not myself. 

Q. Now, when you went to the office and sent this money to the old country, you 
told the postmaster you wanted to send some money to the old country? — A. After he 
told me he can not send money away there 

Q. Then you went to Weston? — A. Yes; I was in Weston — I went there — I didn't 
have no chance to go up because it cost me to pay ticket on the train. 

Q. Now, wasn't there a Colorado Supply Co. up there just the same as at Segundo? — 
No; I think Weston post-office money order. I got receipt; you want to see him? 

Q. Now, the first time you went there you asked for a post-office order? — A. A post- 
office money order. 

Q. Did you each time — you didn't get a post-office money order? — A. He say he can 
not make it; he says he get me to send my money by bank. 

Q. Did he say he could save you money by sending through the bank — I understand 
you to say that it was cheaper? — A. Well, I don't know; I think it is some cheaper 
to send him through by post-office money order. 

Q. So that each time you went in there you said you wanted a post-office money 
order? — A. I ask just one time when I send money to the old country. 

Q. You asked him once — when you send money in the old country — when you send 
money in this country you ask him once? — A. I asked him for a money order. 

Q. Once? — A. Oh, I ask all the time; yes. "When I send money in this country. 
But when I send money in the old country I ask him just one time. 

Q. In this country you ask him A. Each time I go there I said make me post- 
office money order. I can not read America -n . and he give me that just like you see. 



36 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

I don't know the post-office money order is Colorado receipt. My friend tell me this 
blue one is post-office money order, and this other one was Colorado receipt. 

Q. What is this man who does your writing? — A. Mr. Leopadre. 

Q. What is he doing? — A. He runs a grocery store and meat market at Segundo 

Q. Does he have a saloon? — A. No; a meat market and a grocery store. 

Q. In Old Town?— A. Yes. 

By Mr. Brewster: 
Q. Do you wish to keep these or will you leave them with these gentlemen? — A. 
Well, because if they send them back to me it is all right, but I would like to have 
them to show my father and my mother how much I send them. 

(At this point it was directed that the stenographer write these orders into the 
record.) 

"Miner's Exhibit 69. 

"$42.00 "No. 2277. Segundo, Colo., Aug. 11, 1913. 

"200 kronen. 

"Received of R. E. Valentine the sum of forty-two 00/100 dollars for payment of two 
hundred kronen to Domano Valen tinea in Austria, Europa. Tirole bles Rollo. 
"$42.00 "The Colorado Supply Co., 

"G. B. P." 

'Miner's Exhibit 70. 
"200 K. 
"41.60 "No. 1101. "Segundo, 12/18/1909. 

"Received of Rudolf Valentine and the sum of forty-one and 60/100 dollars 

for payment of two hundred kronen to Domenico Valentina in Rollo Oles, Austria. 
$41.60. The Colo. Supply Co." 

Mr. Brewster. We rffer exhibits from 64 to 70, inclusive, and will tender a large 
number of similar exhibits. 

Mr. Herrington. We will admit the practice, and if we have a quarrel with the 
Post Office Department we will take that up in some other way. 

Chairman Foster. It is agreed that the practice has been in existence? 

Mr. Herrington. Up to a certain time. 

Mr. Welborn resumed the stand as a witness for the purpose of making a statement. 

Mr. Welborn. By accident it came to my attention that the man who acted as 
cashier or storekeeper and who was also postmaster was selling exchange — bank 
exchange — or checks on our own treasury at the same price that he was charging for 
the post-office money orders as postmaster. I consulted with Mr. Herrington imme- 
diately about the practice, and he called my attention to the fact that it was against 
the postal regulations, and I stopped it by telegraph. 

Chairman Foster. No; but I can determine that for you. 

Q. Does this apply to all post offices? — A. All post offices we had any connection 
with. 

By Mr. Byrnes: 

Q. Can you recall the time or, by reference to your papers, ascertain the time that 
you did this? — A. I can by to-morrow morning. 

Mr. Herrington. As a matter of fact, it does not apply to foreign exchange. We 
can clear that matter up for you. 

The company claimed that it had discontinued this practice before 
the time we went to Colorado. 

The miners charged that persons had been arrested and deprived 
of their constitutional rights, as the testimony of Mr. McQuarrie, long 
time an under sheriff under Jeff Farr of Huerfano County, shows, and 
we beg to report that during the strike many persons were arrested, 
and as martial law was said to exist in Las Animas and Huerfano 
Counties during the disturbance, many people were thrown into jail 
and kept there for different periods of time, some for quite a long 
while without any charges being made against them and afterward 
released and no explanation given, the authorities claiming this 
was necessary to preserve order. While martial law may be necessary 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 37 

as a military necessity, yet the wholesale arresting of men and im- 
prisoning them without some charge or delivering them to the civil 
authorities for the purpose of being given a trial by court after a 
reasonable time seems contrary to our idea of justice and a usurpation 
of civil law. 

We did not find there were any combinations in restraint of trade 
by limiting the production of coal in the mines of Colorado. 

As to firearms and explosives having been shipped into the State, 
we beg leave to report the facts are conclusive that firearms and 
ammunition were shipped into the State, but not with the idea, so 
far as we were able to determine, to exclude the products of the said 
coal fields from competitive markets in interstate trade, but for the 
purpose of being used in the strike. The mine owners shipped four 
machine guns from West Virginia for use during the strike. The 
evidence conclusively shows the miners bought arms and ammuni- 
tion in quantities, though the amount we do not know. It was also 
found that dealers in firearms in the State of Colorado had a ready 
sale for what they had, and there seemed to be among some dealers 
a great desire to sell to either side of the controversy all the guns and 
ammunition for which they were able to pay. And it seems strange 
to your committee that in these counties where the strike was then 
in existence and where acts of violence were constantly occurring the 
authorities of the State should not have taken some precaution to 
control the sale of firearms. If it was necessary, to prevent violence 
and to preserve order in the strike, that men should be deprived of 
their liberty and put in prison, it was of equal importance to prevent 
disturbance by preventing the sale and distribution of guns and 
ammunition during such a time; and we are at a loss to understand 
why the authorities of the State did not prevent the sale of weapons 
to the contending forces. 

One business man in Trinidad testified that in his judgment it was 
right and proper for a good citizen to sell firearms to anyone who had 
money to pay for them, and as an evidence of his good citizenship he 
stated that he was a " member of the city council," whose duty as 
such it should have been to do all in his power to maintain order 
during this strike. Other merchants of Walsenberg and Pueblo 
exercised the same diligence in making sale of guns to any who might 
desire to purchase them, and these dealers in doing so at least 
morally assumed their part of the responsibility for lawlessness and 
violations of the law in the use of guns and explosives. It is cer- 
tainly the duty of every citizen at a time when local disturbances 
occur in any community to do what they can to prevent trouble and 
to preserve the peace, and it is unfortunate that some men will per- 
sist in getting a profit out of business of this kind. We do not believe 
a majority of the people of Colorado indorse such actions, as we have 
every reason to believe that a majority of the people of that State 
desire to maintain order and prevent violence, and it is their wish 
as well as to their interest to maintain industrial peace. We mention 
these things so as to call them to the attention of the proper legisla- 
tive bodies, whose function it is to pass laws to prevent like condi- 
tions; and of the executive authorities, whose duty it is to enforce 
the laws when enacted, that in the future both may take such meas- 
ures which will prevent this condition if similar trouble should occur. 
Officers can not enforce the law, however vigilant they may be, unless 



38 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

the people of the community or State do their part in preventing 
violations. 

In the investigations of the probable causes leading to the strike 
we permitted the widest latitude in taking evidence, and witnesses 
were not restricted technically to the terms of the resolution, as we 
believed Congress desired to know the causes of this industrial dis- 
turbance and to look into all its phases and determine if possible some 
remedy that might prevent such conditions in the future. A strike 
in any State or community which vitally affects so many people 
and the industries located there is of such importance that it is the 
duty of every citizen, whether he be a member of the legislative 
body or the head of the executive department of the State or city 
or a citizen in his private capacity, to seek means to prevent the 
destruction of property and loss of life. Colorado is a great State 
and its rich resources are well known to all, and by working in har- 
mony the people will be able to develop these vast resources and 
make it one of the richest and most productive States in the Union. 
The people as a rule are enterprising, high-minded, and good citizens; 
and it is to be regretted, with such advantages in the State, that 
there should be such disturbances at stated periods of its history. 

We beg to call attention to the fact that in these incorporated towns 
the companies are permitted to put up a sign " private property" 
and exclude all except those whom they see fit to permit to enter, 
all the officials of the city, the mayor, and the school board, being 
officials of the mining companies. 

Only one store is permitted within the closed camp, and this is 
almost invariably owned and operated by the mining company. The 
schools are usually conducted by the officials of the mining company; 
and such educational advantages as the children of the miners have 
are given through these officials, who are under the control of the op- 
erators. In these closed camps places of recreation or amusement are 
scarcely known. The miner must go to the saloon as a place of amuse- 
ment, which is usually a building large enough to accommodate quite a 
number of people that may congregate therein, and usually the num- 
ber of saloons is so restricted as to make it as profitable as possible 
for those conducting them and the rent is rated according to the 
number of miners in the camp; the building is owned and rented by 
the company and the rent goes into the profits of the operators. Of 
the camps visited by us we observed but one camp where there 
seemed to be any effort to create a sentiment for anything better 
and where any provisions had been made for a better place ot recrea- 
tion or amusement than the saloons. 

Christmas services, on Christmas, 1913, in one of these mining 
camps was held in a room next to a saloon with a door between, and 
Mr. Cameron, the superintendent, when asked if in his judgment it 
was a proper place for the holding of Christmas Eve services, an- 
swered that "he thought it was." It shows an utter disregard for 
all things that have to do with the upbuilding of character and 
making men's condition better. It is to be regretted that a man em- 
ployed in these mines could find nothing more elevating than a saloon 
for a social place where he can go to meet his friends and enjoy the 
evening. Many of these people who work in the mines may be un- 
acquainted with ways of our country; many of them are not even 
citizens of our own country, not having been naturalized, but they 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 39 

are in our midst and it should be the duty of our people to point them 
to a higher citizenship and provide means for the proper education of 
their children in order that they may grow up to be useful citizens. 
And does not this duty devolve in a peculiar way upon these large 
industrial corporations which have such complete control of all the 
factors which make up the lives of this large class of our citizens, 
isolated as they frequently are from contact with the forces of our 
general civilization? 

Mr. Rockefeller, a large stockholder of the most powerful company 
in the State, has done a great deal for the uplift of people in other 
parts of the country and in foreign lands, spending millions of 
dollars in this work, yet he has not endeavored to improve the condi- 
tions of the more than 6,000 employees in the company with which 
he is connected and has not visited the State for more than 10 years. 

Mr. Rockefeller is a long-distance director, not having attended 
a meeting of the stockholders or directors of the company in 10 
years. It seems to have been his practice to select such men as be- 
thought best for him and then look only to them for the management 
without any personal knowledge of the conditions. He had his 
representatives on the board of directors, and Mr. L. M. Bowers was 
said to be his personal representative in the State of Colorado. 
What did Mr. Rockefeller ever do for the coal miners of Colorado to 
better their conditions morally or socially? There is no evidence of 
his inquiring as to the conditions of these men who worked for the 
company in which he was interested. But what could be expected of 
one who was only "a long-distance director" in all his dealing with 
the company ? It is true he did spend a large part of his profits com- 
ing from the Colorado Industrial Co., a part of the Colorado Fuel & 
Iron Co., in the bettering of conditions in other parts of the country, 
but what of that when the money is gained in such way and at such 
expense to the State and its people? The testimony showed that in 
many of these mining camps no one was permitted to go in for the 
purpose of selling anything which was in competition with the store, 
and no candidate was permitted to visit these camps and become 
acquainted with the voters unless the operators permitted him to do 
so; and yet at each election such miners as were voters were exercising 
their right of citizenship without being accorded the right of knowing 
the candidate for whom they might desire to vote. Such conditions 
are intolerable in a country like ours where the people rule. It is 
stated that no miner is compelled to trade at the company's store, and 
it is true, so far as we were able to ascertain, that no orders have ever 
been issued that the miners must trade at the one store: yet it was 
testified to by the miners that there was an understanding that if an 
employee did not purchase a reasonable amount at the store his serv- 
ices were no longer desired. 

In these camps miners are not permitted to buy a home. It was 
said by Mr. Welborn, the president of the Colorado Fuel & Iron 
Co., that they would not sell to them if they desired to purchase, 
so that they must live in rented houses, subject to beino' evicted 
whenever the company has no further use for them and must con- 
tinue as tenants so Ions;: as they work for these operators. 

The operators in Colorado objected to the Mine Workers' Union, an 
organisation that favors the check-off system, and objected to the 
union mine, yet the Mine Workers' organization in that State was 



40 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

no stronger or closer than the system existing in these closed camps. 
It was like a system of feudalism, with such regulations by law as the 
operators were willing should be put into operation. Many of the 
miners, it is true, make good wages, yet the scale of prices is not as 
high in Colorado as it is in the adjoining State of Wyoming. Men 
may be paid a fair wage, and yet there may be such intolerable condi- 
tions connected with the work and such deductions and restrictions 
as the company may see fit to make that dissatisfaction must inevit- 
ably result. There can be no permanent order under such conditions 
so long as they do exist. The worker may be poor but still is a 
liuman being. His every instinct and sentiment and his education 
should be directed to higher and better things, and we believe under 
proper conditions he will become a better citizen and a more efficient 
worker. The constant oppression and neglect and arbitrary conduct 
of the officials of these companies were prolific causes of the dissatis- 
faction which resulted in this disturbance and the consequent de- 
struction of life and property. 

ARBITRATION. 

Before the strike was called September 23, 1913, some effort was 
made to induce the operators and representatives of the miners to 
meet and, if possible, affect a settlement, thus avoiding the strike. 
The operators took the position that there was nothing to arbitrate 
and that their employees were satisfied and willing to work under 
the conditions then existing, and that whatever dissatisfaction ex- 
isted was due to agitation by those who were officials of the union 
and were endeavoring to secure recognition of the union. The oper- 
ators also refused to meet in consultation with the representatives of 
the miners, claiming that would be a partial recognition of the union. 
After the strike had been called efforts were made to secure a meeting 
of the operators and representatives of the miners, but the operators 
again refused to have anything to do with the official representatives 
of the miners and would not even sit in the room with them. A meet- 
ing of the editors with three miners and the operators was called by 
some of the editors of the State and, after some discussion, a pro- 
posal of settlement was made which the operators accepted and the 
miners did not. It was said it was not submitted to the miners for 
ratification. The Secretary of Labor, Mr. W. B. Wilson, sent a repre- 
sentative to Colorado in the person of Mr. Ethelbert Stewart, to see 
if it was possible to ascertain if something could be done to settle the 
strike. The Secretary himself made a visit to the strike regions, 
conferring with the representatives of the strikers, the operators, and 
with the governor, in an attempt to settle the difficulty in some peace- 
ful way. 

A proposal of settlement was at one time made by the governor 
and the Secretary of Labor, but it was not accepted by the operators, 
they claiming that the former proposal of the editors' meeting had 
not been acted on by the miners. (See p. 411 of the hearings, and 
testimony of Mr. J. C. Osgood.) 

The operators at; all times refused to accept any settlement that 
looked to the creation of a committee of grievances or other ma- 
chinery whereby differences arising in the future between them and 
their employees could be adjusted, as that might be construed as a 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 41 

recognition of the principle of the union, to which they were opposed 
and would not under any circumstances tolerate. On the other hand, 
the miners would not settle the strike without having some means 
whereby the difficulties arising between the operators and themselves 
could be adjusted; and they claimed that all the operators offered in 
the meeting of the editors was that they would live up to the law, which 
the miners claimed it was their duty to do and was not a concession in 
any manner to them and would not give them the relief to which they 
were entitled. The miners believed without some collective action 
they could not secure any right to have adjusted the grievances that 
they might have in the future. 

Efforts were made by different persons connected with the Gov- 
ernment to endeavor to settle this strike without a recognition of 
the union and on some basis similar to that of the anthracite strike 
in Pennsylvania several years ago and the garment-makers strike 
in New York which had occurred recently, in which cases the union 
was not recognized but a means of adjusting difficulties in the future 
that might arise was put into operation so that the union worker 
and the nonunion worker each had the same right to adjust whatever 
grievance he might have. In connection with industrial disturbances 
which recently took place or was impending on the railroads, Congress 
by enlarging the power of the Erdman Act averted a strike and peace- 
fully settled what threatened at one time to become a very serious 
matter. It does not seem to us that the operators in the coal fields 
of Colorado showed a willingness to settle this trouble by meeting with 
the representatives of the miners, which they should have done. The 
statement that they were fighting for the principle of every man to 
work for whom he pleased and for what he pleased and under such 
conditions which seemed to him best, was only for the purpose of 
holding in control their workmen and compelling them to work for 
them under such conditions as they chose to give them, and such 
wages as they might feel like paying. 

The offer of the President of the United States to settle the strike 
by entering into a truce for three years between the operators and 
miners was accepted by the miners, and rejected by the operators, 
again indicating the operators' refusal to treat with their employees, 
which could have been done without recognizing the union. 

Arbitration is one remedy that should be considered in the question 
of settlement of industrial disputes. Not that either side should be 
compelled to accept that as a means of settlement, but when the facts 
are known and thoroughly understood by the public it is easier to bring 
about a peaceable solution of the differences. The people will not long 
tolerate injustice on either side when they understand the situation. 
Many instances might be cited as examples of the benefit of arbi- 
tration. Public opinion will not countenance nor uphold employees 
in an unjust claim upon their employers and will be just as quick to 
condemn the employer for unjust treatment of those who work for 
him. In disputes between employer and employee it is not the case 
that the wrong is all on one side; so that, if a proper understanding 
is had, then the differences may be adjusted. The public has rights 
in all these troubles, and is entitled to know the cause of the disturb- 
ance, and to have a settlement fair to both; as in the case of Colorado, 
the people must pay a large share of the loss directly in the taxes 



42 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

imposed to cover the cost of maintaining order and indirectly by 
having the business of the State greatly disturbed. ■ 

The method of fighting out industrial disputes by force on either 
side should be a thing of the past. Society in general can not tolerate 
such conduct on either side. The statement that a man or company 
of men who put their money in a business have a right to operate it 
as they see fit, without regard to the public interest, belongs to days 
long since passed away. Every individual who invests his capital 
in an enterprise that is legitimate is entitled to the protection of 
the law and should be protected against violence and destruction 
of property, but he owes something to society. We now provide 
in leasing public lands for the purpose of mining coal and other 
minerals the right to regulate as to the conditions of labor and other- 
wise for the public good. The public has an interest in the develop- 
ment of the resources of the country and should encourage in every 
legitimate way possible the building up of these industries everywhere, 
but in doing so they should have some right of regulation and pre- 
vent, if possible, the violence that occurs in strikes which causes such 
loss of life and property. We can not too strongly urge the impor- 
tance of settling these disputes in a peaceable way and without force 
of arms. 

Mr. Rockefeller, before the committee in Washington, said he would 
not agree to arbitration for the reason that he was fighting for a great 
principle, and would sacrifice all his property for the principle of 
every man to be free to work for whom he pleases and on such terms 
as best suits the worker. Mr. Rockefeller, speaking as a director of 
the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co., not having attended a meeting of the 
stockholders or directors in 10 years, uttering this sentiment of liberty 
for the working people of his company and of the whole country, 
should remember that for 30 years there has been the fiercest struggle 
among the workers in the mines of Colorado. He may win a strike 
by starvation under the false banner of liberty for the workingman, 
but we do not believe he can maintain peace under such conditions 
as exist in that State. In this struggle which has existed for so many 
years, the workers have forced the operators to yield their opposi- 
tion to many of the reforms in labor laws, for shorter hours, and other 
benefits that have come to them. It is true that men should not be 
compelled to recognize the union, and men should be free to sell their 
labor as they think best, but in Colorado the miners felt without some 
collective action they could not get the proper protection, and the 
only way to secure justice for themselves was by acting in unison. 
It must not be forgotten that coal mining is a hazardous occupation, 
and the great loss of life in the mines proves that the men who mine 
coal should be entitled to all the safeguards possible for their pro- 
tection. Mr. Rockefeller was not a good judge of conditions in Colo- 
rado and knew nothing about them. He was not willing to submit 
to a fair board of arbiters to settle this strike. He was obstinate and 
the statement that he was fighting for liberty for the workingman 
will not bear investigation. The strike could have been settled with- 
out recognition of the union had he desired to do so, and the employees 
could have worked for him whether members of the union or not. 

We believe he did not desire to arbitrate and in that way end 
this strike, and one must conclude he would rather spend the money 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 43 

of the company for guns, pay of detectives and mine guards and 
starve the strikers into submission. On the other hand, the miners 
were insistent on the recognition of the union, believing as they did 
that they could only obtain their rights when acting together. In 
the employment of force to win the strike, they went beyond the 
rights of law-abiding citizens and committed acts of violence. They 
always, however, seemed willing to meet and endeavor to settle the 
dispute by arbitration and it is believed that a settlement could have 
been made on a basis fair to both the employer and employee. When 
there exists serious differences between men which can not be settled 
between themselves it is the better plan to adjust these troubles by 
arbitration and no fair-minded man should refuse to submit such 
differences to a proper and fair board of men to settle. Greater 
interests than those of Mr. Rockefeller in these mines or all the coal 
mining interests of Colorado have submitted to arbitration and many 
lives would have been spared and men, women, and children would 
be alive to-day who were sacrificed during this controversy, had this 
course been pursued. 

In Colorado it appeared that men on either side seemed to lose 
the respect they should have had for the rights of others, and at one 
time in the course of the strike there seemed to be a condition of 
anarchy throughout the southern part of the State. It has been 
unfortunate for Colorado and its people that these strikes should occur 
at stated periods with apparently no way to settle them except by 
force. We can not too strongly urge arbitration as a means of settling 
these disputes between capital and labor, and the people of this coun- 
try are rapidly reaching the conclusion that parties to such a dispute 
must not be permitted to embroil a State or States in a prolonged and 
bloody warfare that disturbs so disastrously the peace and welfare of 
the Nation. To this end the Congress has created a Commission on 
Industrial Relations and authorized it to thoroughly investigate and 
ascertain the underlying causes leading up to struggles such as the 
Colorado strike and similar disturbances, and if possible suggest an 
effective remedy. 

All concerned in the unfortunate situation that existed in Colorado 
for so many months are to be congratulated that at least a partial 
settlement has been reached. Many efforts have been made by 
various agencies other than those set in motion by the President 
and by the Congress to find a solution. In the end a proposal 
made by President Wilson that all future difficulties be referred to a 
board of conciliation or arbitration, which should consist of three 
members of nation-wide reputation for ability and fairness. The 
miners accepted this proposal and called off the strike, but the oper- 
ators have refused to accept this arrangement. It is yet to be seen 
whether the force of public sentiment will impress itself upon them 
in due time sufficiently to cause a thoroughly mutual acceptance of 
this principle of arbitration, which, while not wholly satisfactory to 
either party, is unquestionably for their best interests and the best 
interests of the public. 

By a gradual but sure development the coal business of the country 
is being conducted on a large scale and by frequent consolidations is 
largely being carried on by large companies. Next to the business 
of transportation the fuel business of the country touches the people 



44 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

and their business in an intimate and important way. If these strike 
troubles continue to break forth, it will, plainly be necessary to con- 
sider seriously whether some measure of regulation shall not be 
adopted with reference to this business as carried on in interstate 
commerce, as is now done with reference to the business of transpor- 
tation. 

M. D. Foster. 

John M. Evans. 

Howard Sutherland. 



VIEWS OF REPRESENTATIVE BYRNES, OF SOUTH 

CAROLINA. 



The resolution ordering this investigation does not authorize a 
report by this committee upon the relations existing between capital 
and labor, the causes of industrial unrest, and allied subjects, and 
inasmuch as Congress has specifically authorized such an investi- 
gation by the Committee on Industrial Relations, I cannot assume 
that in the absence of direction, authority, or request of Congress 
that this committee is expected to file a report upon these subjects. 
I believe that the report should be responsive to the resolution order- 
ing the investigation, and therefore shall consider and discuss the 
queries in the order in which they appear in the resolution. 

First. Whether or not any system of peonage has been or is being 
maintained in the coal or copper fields. 

Quite a number of witnesses were heard on this subject, but I am 
of the opinion that the testimony does not warrant the conclusion 
that peonage existed in the coal fields of Colorado. 

Second. Whether or not postal services and facilities have been or 
are being interfered with or obstructed in said coal fields; and if so, 
by whom. 

The only testimony tending to prove interference with or obstruc- 
tion of the postal facilities was that of John Wennburg, who com- 
plained that he was prevented from approaching the Hastings post 
office by the most convenient and usually traveled route. 

From the testimony it appeared that the Hastings post office is 
located on the private property of the mining company, and the camp 
can be entered only through a gate at which a guard was stationed 
when the strike was called. The witness Wennburg was among those 
who left the employment of the mining company and moved to the 
Ludlow tent colony. He testified that thereafter he attempted to 
visit the Hastings post office by the road usually traveled, and the 
guard informed him that he could not travel that street, but must 
cross an arroyo or ditch and travel a road to the rear of the homes of 
the miners in order to reach the post office. He stated that he refused 
to do this and returned to the Ludlow tent colony where he resided, 
and the next day requested the hack driver to bring his mail to him. 
From the testimony it appeared that the mine officials took the posi- 
tion that Wennburg, who was a brother to the president of the local 
union, was active among the strikers, and they believed in visiting 
the post office he was actuated not so much by the desire to secure 
mail as by the desire to interfere with the men at work in the mines 
whose homes were located on the road used for approaching the post 
office. They claimed further that the camp was private property 
and that they were justified in refusing to permit him to travel this 

45 



46 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

road on the ground that he might interfere with the miners and thus 
endanger the peace and order of the camp. There can be no doubt 
that this road was the route ordinarily traveled, and, notwithstand- 
ing the effort to show the contrary, that it was most inconvenient to 
approach the post office by crossing the arroyo as he was directed to 
do. On the other hand, experience has shown that most of the acts 
of violence which unfortunately accompany these industrial disturb- 
ances are brought about by the strikers and the men who succeed 
them at work and who they call strike breakers being brought in 
contact with each other. 

There may be differences of opinion as to the right of the com- 
pany to restrict the liberty of Wennburg to the extent of directing 
what route he should travel on their property in order to approach 
the post office, and also as to the wisdom of the Post Office Depart- 
ment in establishing an office upon private property, but under 
the testimony above referred to I do not think that it can be seri- 
ously contended that there has been any interference with or obstruc- 
tion of the mail facilities. The great majority of the men who 
went on strike were located at the Ludlow tent colony, where Wenn- 
burg also resided. This was some distance from Hastings post office, 
and much nearer other post offices from which the inhabitants of 
the colony received their mail; in any event, from them your com- 
mittee heard no complaint on this score, and, therefore, I report 
that in my opinion there was no interference with or obstruction of 
the postal facilities. 

Third. Whether or not the immigration laws of this country have 
been or are being violated in said coal or copper fields; and if so, by 
whom. 

No testimony was offered nor could your committee find that any 
of the immigration laws of this country were violated. 

Fourth. Investigate and report all facts and circumstances 
relating to the charge that citizens of the United States have been 
arrested, tried, or convicted contrary to or in violation of the Con- 
stitution or the laws of the United States. 

It appeared from the testimony that after the governor of the 
State of Colorado had declared that a state of insurrection existed 
in certain counties, that the State militia was ordered in the fields, 
and during the continuance of the strike a number of persons were 
arrested by the militia and confined in the county jail on the charge 
of aiding and abetting the insurrection. These persons were after- 
wards discharged without having been tried by court-martial or 
by the State courts. This is the testimony relied upon to show that 
persons were arrested in violation of the Constitution and laws of 
the United States. Regardless of the views anyone may entertain 
as to the wisdom of empowering the chief executive of a State, 
through his agents, the militia, to arrest persons charged with aiding 
insurrection without affording them a trial in the courts of the State, 
there can be no doubt that such action on the part of the governor 
of the State of Colorado was entirely in accord with the laws of the 
State. The case of Moyer v. Peabody, arising out of the Colorado 
strike of 1904, was based on substantially the same facts complained 
of in these cases, and the Supreme Court of the United States in 
sustaining the decision of the supreme court of the State of Colorado 
has this to say: 



COLOKADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 47 

It would seem to be admitted by the plaintiff that he was president of the Western 
Federation of Miners, and that, whoever was to blame, trouble was apprehended with 
the members of that organization. We mention these facts not as material but simply 
to put in more definite form the nature of the occasion on which the governor felt 
called upon to act. In such a situation we must assume that he had a right under 
the State constitution and laws to call out troops, as was held by the supreme 
court of the State. The constitution is supplemented by an act providing that ' ' when 
an invasion of or insurrection in the State is made or threatened the governor shall 
order the National Guard to repel or suppress the same." (Laws of 1897, c. 63, art. 7, 
par. 2, p. 204.) That means that he shall make the ordinary use of the soldiers to that 
end; that he may kill persons who resist, and,, of course, that he may use the milder 
measure in seizing the bodies of those whom he considers to stand in the way of restor- 
ing peace. Such arrests are not necessarily for punishment, but are by way of precau- 
tion to prevent the exercise of hostile power. So long as such arrests are made in good 
faith and in the honest belief that they are needed in order to head the insurrection 
off, the governor is the final judge and can not be subjected to an action after he is out 
of office on the ground that he had not reasonable ground for his belief. 

I, therefore, report that in Colorado persons have not been arrested, 
tried, or convicted contrary to or in violation of the Constitution or 
laws of the United States. 

Fifth. Investigate and report whether the conditions existing in 
said coal fields in Colorado and in said copper fields in Michigan have 
been caused by agreements and combinations entered into contrary 
to the laws of the United States for the purpose of controlling the 
production, sale, and transportation of the coal and copper of these 
fields. 

The committee was unable to secure any evidence tending to show 
any agreement or combination such as set forth in this query. 

Sixth. Investigate and report whether or not firearms, ammuni- 
tion, and explosives have been shipped into the said coal and copper 
fields with the purpose to exclude the products of the said fields from 
competitive markets in interstate trade; and if so, by whom, and by 
whom paid for. 

After the strike was ordered firearms were shipped into the State 
of Colorado to the mining companies, and there was testimony to 
show the purchase of ammunition by the United Mine Workers of 
America, as well as the mining companies, from dealers within the 
State. Both sides, of course, claimed that it was purchased for the 
purpose of defending themselves and their property. There was 
absolutely no testimony to show the shipment into Colorado of fire- 
arms, ammunition, and explosives for the purpose to exclude the 
products of said fields from competitive markets in interstate trade; 
nor was it contended by anyone that the purchases were for any such 
purpose. 

Seventh. If any or all of these conditions exist, the causes leading 
up to said conditions. 

A reading of the reports filed by the other members of the com- 
mittee will show that all of the committee believe as I do — that none 
of the conditions set forth in the resolution existed in the State of 
Colorado. This being true, manifestly there can be no report of 
causes leading up to such conditions. The report of the majority does 
state that "We did not feel that we had a right to interfere or in- 
vestigate political conditions within the State only so far as it might 
be a cause of dissatisfaction among the miners and one of the reasons 
leading up to the strike. " The resolution under which the investiga- 
tion was ordered did not authorize or direct the Committee to investi- 
gate the cause of the strike. It set forth six subjects over which the 



48 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

United states Government has jurisdiction and in the seventh para- 
graph provided "If any or all of these conditions exist, the causes 
leading up to said conditions." This language certainly is plain. If 
none of the six conditions set forth in the resolution exist, there can 
be no investigation under this seventh provision. The resolution did 
not instruct the committee to ascertain if a strike existed and if so 
the "causes leading up to the strike. " If it had it would not have 
been adopted by the House in my opinion, because far as the House has 
gone to gratify those who would make of Congress a publicity bureau, 
it has not yet established the precedent of investigating the causes 
of every strike that occurs in the various States of the Union. 
In the effort to secure information bearing on the subjects directed 
by the resolution to be investigated, a large number of witnesses were 
heard, and the widest latitude was allowed in the taking of testimony 
in the hope that some light might be thrown on the subjects set forth 
in the resolution. As a result of this policy, much, if not the greater 
part of the testimony taken was irrelevant to the resolution, but in 
making this report I believe it should be responsive to the resolution 
ordering the investigation, and I, therefore, refrain from expressing 
either agreement or disagreement with the conclusions of other mem- 
bers of the committee based on the testimony irrelevant to the reso- 
lution. Most of this irrelevant testimony was directed toward alleged 
violations of State laws, and if the conditions thus complained of 
exist, they can be remedied only by the fair, impartial, and strict 
enforcement of the laws of the State of Colorado and not by the 
Federal Government. 

The only purpose for which any congressional investigation is 
ordered is to secure information upon which Congress can legislate. 
I do not know of any way in which Congress can legislate to compel 
the strict enforcement by Colorado of its statutory enactments. 
This can be accomplished only by an awakened public sentiment, 
such an awakening as I believe has already taken place in the State 
of Colorado and will result in stricter enforcement of its laws. 

By reference to the testimony it will be seen that witnesses were 
heard as to the political conditions in certain counties, the manner in 
which members of the State legislature were elected, and also as to 
the manner in which jurors were drawn and in which jury trials were 
conducted in the State courts. 

The report filed by other members of the committee contains the 
findings of these members based upon this testimony. In this report 
I wish to renew the objection to this testimony which was made by 
me at the time it was taken, to wit: That it was unauthorized by the 
resolution, and in violation of rights reserved to the State of Colorado 
by the Constitution of the United States. 

The Constitution provides that: "The United States shall guar- 
antee to every State in this Union a republican form of government." 
(Art. IV, sec. 4.) This is the limit of the national control over the 
internal affairs of a State. There is no claim here that a republican 
form of government does not exist in the State of Colorado. Nor is 
there any claim that Congress in this resolution authorized this com- 
mittee to investigate whether or not such a form of government 
existed in Colorado. In fact, reference to the resolution will show 
that Congress did not attempt, under this or any other provision of 



COLOEADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 49 

the Constitution, to authorize this committee to investigate political 
conditions. In my opinion, if this resolution had contained such 
authority, or if it had been anticipated that the committee would so 
construe the resolution, this investigation would have never been 
ordered by the House. 

I have no doubt that in every county in every State in the 
Union, persons who have been defeated as candidates for public 
office or who have been unsuccessful in litigation in the State 
courts honestly believe that irregularities, fraud, and corruption 
caused their defeat. There can also be no doubt that in a great many 
cases their complaint would be justified by the facts; but it is my 
opinion that Colorado has no monopoly of fraud in its State elections 
and in its jury trials. Its people are progressive, intelligent, and hon- 
est, and there is no justification for a Congressional Committee 
selecting Colorado, of all the States of the Union, for the purpose of 
interfering with or criticizing the conduct of its internal affairs. Con- 
gress certainly has no more right to investigate and criticize the inter- 
nal affairs of Colorado than of South Carolina. If Congress attempted 
to exercise this power to investigate the conduct of jury trials in the 
State courts and local elections in the State of South Carolina, I would 
most earnestly protest, and I therefore protest against such an in- 
vestigation and criticism of the State of Colorado. No matter what 
irregularities may have occurred in its State and county elections, 
Congress has no power to apply a remedy, and therefore I respect- 
fully submit that such investigation and criticism are not only futile, 
but an unwarranted assumption of power not granted by Congress 
and without the power of Congress to grant. 

As the majority report does not declare that any of the conditions 
referred to in the resolution exist in Colorado, and does not make 
any specific recommendation for legislation by Congress which would 
remedy conditions, it would seem that they agree with me that 
no federal question is involved in this matter. If this be true, 
then I can see no reason for this committee reporting to Con- 
gress upon the alleged violation of State laws in the State of 
Colorado. By some who realize that no Federal question is in- 
volved, it is contended that it is not expected that an investi- 
gation of this kind will result in remedial legislation by Con- 
gress, but that its purpose is to furnish a vehicle of publicity. 
I can not agree with the idea of having the United States Congress 
abrogate its function as a legislative body and enter upon the es- 
tablishment of a bureau of publicity. There is no necessity for Con- 
gress doing so as there does not seem to be any lack of such vehicles at 
this time, in fact if there is any affliction of which the people of Colo- 
rado may justly complain other than the unfortunate warfare accom- 
panying the recent strike, it is the unmerited and undesirable sensational 
publicity to which it has been subjected by some portions of the press 
and some public men, creating the impression throughout the 
nation that the State of Colorado is inhabited exclusively by oppres- 
sive coal barons and lawless, bloodthirsty strikers. Actual condi- 
tions attending the warfare in this strike were bad enough without 
any exaggeration. But disregarding the question of the accuracy 
or inaccuracy of the many articles appearing in the current periodi- 
cals as to the Colorado strike I think it must be admitted that 

H. Doc. 1630, 63-3 4 



50 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

there has not been such a dearth of publicity as would justify the 
Confess of the United States in making of itself a vehicle of publicity. 
If a Federal question is involved in this case justifying comment 
and criticism by the Committee, manifestly the majority of the Com- 
mittee should call that question to the attention of the Congress and 
suggest some remedy. The best proof that no such question is in- 
volved is that the majority report fails to disclose either the ques- 
tion or the remedy. 

James F. Byrnes. 



VIEWS OF MR. AUSTIN. 



Mr. Austin, from the Committee on Mines and Mining, sub- 
mitted the following recommendations: 



i & 






I respectfully recommend that the clerk to the Committee on 
Mines and Mining furnish a copy of the evidence taken by the sub- 
committee which investigated the coal strike in Colorado to the 
Attorney General, with instructions that he examine the same with 
a view of ordering the prosecution of any person or persons guilty 
of violating the laws of the United States in connection with mining 
operations, or growing out of said strike. 

Second. That a copy of the evidence be transmitted to the gov- 
ernor of Colorado, and the presiding officers of both branches of 
the legislature of that State, to be used in connection with the con- 
sideration of desirable legislation to correct, remedy, and make 
impossible a repetition of the condition of affairs as shown by the 
evidence as existing prior to and during the continuation of the 
strike. In this connection I desire to call attention to the necessity 
of local or State legislation covering the following subjects: 

Laws to prevent the sale and transportation of firearms and 
ammunition, making it a felony to carry concealed weapons; the 
rigid enforcement of the present mining laws, indorsed by the oper- 
ators and miners; that mine guards shall not be eligible for 
service in the State militia or the National Guard; prohibiting the 
employment of aliens to take the place of native or naturalized citi- 
zens in the mines of that State; making it unlawful for deputy 
sheriffs or other officials to serve on grand or trial juries ; compelling 
the appointment of a coroner's jury in the case of every fatal mine 
accident, and prohibiting the same men from serving on coroners' 
juries oftener than every five years; an increase in the appropriations 
m order that the term of the free schools in the mining districts may 
be extended for a period of not less than eight months in every year ; 
better and more comfortable houses for the miners; improved sani- 
tary conditions, etc. ; a graduated physician's fee for mining camps 
ranging from 25 cents to 75 cents per month, according to the num- 
ber of miners employed, and in no case the salary to exceed $150 
per month; rigid enforcement of the existing law that no miner be 
discharged or refused employment for the sole reason that he is a 
member of a labor organization; a fair and just law making pro- 
vision for the widow of a miner who loses his life in a mine accident 
through no fault of his own, and an insurance system providing for 
those who are maimed or crippled as a result of a mine accident 
or explosion; prohibiting the employment of nonresident detective 
agencies; limiting the number of deputy sheriffs and game wardens. 

51 



52 COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 

If an arrest is made during a strike a copy of the charges against 
the party arrested shall be furnished to him immediately, and an 
opportunity given for him to employ counsel. 

Third. Congress created on August 23, 1912, a Commission on 
Industrial Relations and up to date has appropriated $450,000 to 
maintain the same. Under the law this commission must make its 
final report not later than August 23, 1915. Its duty, under section 4 
of the act creating it, is as follows : 

. Sec. 4. That the commission shall inquire into the general condition of labor 
in the principal industries of the United States, including agriculture, and 
especially in those which are carried on in corporate forms ; into existing rela- 
tions between employers and employees; into the effect of industrial conditions 
on public welfare and into the rights and powers of the community to deal there- 
with; into the conditions of sanitation and safety of employees and the provi- 
sions for protecting the life, limb, and health of the employees ; into the growth 
of associations of employers and of wage earners and the effect of such associa- 
tions upon the relations between employers and employees; into the extent and 
results of methods of collective bargaining ; into any methods which have been 
tried in any State or in foreign countries for maintaining mutually satisfactory 
relations between employees and employers; into methods for avoiding or 
adjusting labor disputes through peaceful and conciliatory mediation and nego- 
tiations; into the scope, methods, and resources of existing bureaus of labor and 
into possible ways of increasing their usefulness; into the question of smug- 
gling or other illegal entry of Asiatics into the United States or its insular 
possessions, and of the methods by which such Asiatics have gained and are 
gaining such admission, and shall report to Congress as speedily as possible 
with such recommendation as said commission may think proper to prevent such 
smuggling and illegal entry. The commission shall seek to discover the under- 
lying causes of dissatisfaction in the industrial situation and report its 
conclusions thereon. 

I further recommend that a copy of the evidence taken by the sub- 
committee be furnished the Commission on Industrial Relations for 
use in the preparation of its final report, and its recommendations to 
Congress covering needed remedial legislation under the section 
quoted above. In this connection I would suggest to the members of 
said commission national legislation covering the following subjects : 
A law to prohibit the transportation in interstate commerce of fire- 
arms and ammunition into a strike zone or a State in which a strike 
is being conducted; the establishment of a mine-rescue station in the 
northern and southern coal fields of Colorado. 

In case of the location of post offices in mining camps or towns 
owned by private persons or corporations, a highway or road to said 
post office to be open and maintained at all times for the use of the 
public, or those desiring the use of postal facilities, whether or not 
they are in the employment of the company owning the mining camp 
or town. 

That if the parties to a coal strike fail or are unable to come to 
an agreement, the matters in controversy be referred to the Chief 
Justice of the United States Supreme Court as an arbitrator, and 
in the event of his sickness or unwillingness to serve, he request one 
of the associate justices of the Supreme Court to act as arbitrator. 

As the importation into Colorado of alien or foreign labor has 
been largely responsible for the last two strikes, resulting in the 
loss of over 60 lives and property, business, and wages amounting 
to $18,000,000 in the recent strike, the passage of a law to restrict 
undesirable or foreign immigration is of the greatest importance in 
preventing a repetition of the recent deplorable trouble in that State, 



COLORADO STRIKE INVESTIGATION. 53 

practically amounting to a civil war, and requiring, according to 
President Wilson's view, the presence of Federal troops for months. 
In the first strike 80 per cent of the strike breakers were aliens. 
During the recent trouble 80 per cent of the strikers were foreigners 
and 80 per cent of the strike breakers were foreigners. 

We should keep out of the United States strike breakers who do 
not speak our language; do not enter our country to make it their 
permanent home, and put forth no effort to learn our language or 
to become naturalized American citizens. Such a wise and patriotic 
measure as would accomplish this purpose was recently passed by 
more than a two-thirds vote by both Houses of Congress, and although 
Mr. Samuel Gompers, president of the American Federation of 
Labor, and the officers of the United Mine Workers, and thousands 
of others, including myself, appealed in vain to President Wilson 
in the name of and in the interest of organized and unorganized 
labor to make this bill the law of the land by signing it, he refused 
to do so. As a result the United States will continue to receive 
every year perhaps more than a million idle foreigners, ready and 
anxious to take the place and crowd out of employment the honest 
and deserving native and naturalized American citizens, and not 
only in Colorado but in every State in the Union. Until such a law 
is passed we will continue to have alien or foreign strike breakers 
in Colorado and other States. 

This bill the President vetoed or killed would have put an end to 
alien or foreign strike breakers in Colorado and other States. The 
failure of President Wilson to settle the coal strike was a great dis- 
appointment to the country. President Roosevelt gave a better ac- 
count of himself in the satisfactory adjustment of the Pennsylvania 
strike, the greatest coal strike in the history of the United States. 

R. W. Austin. 

o 



k 






r 




^f*o*»JOAHvaan 



